


Do You See Her Face?

by athingthatwantsvirginia



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 44
Words: 206,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23783611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athingthatwantsvirginia/pseuds/athingthatwantsvirginia
Summary: Missing a piece of herself she knows will never be replaced, Ella Stevens can only hope to make it through her last two years of high school and earn some extra money waitressing at Luke’s Diner. When Jess Mariano, Luke’s New Yorker nephew and the new teen menace of Stars Hollow, arrives in town, it quickly becomes clear he has no plans to make her life any easier. But as time goes on, neither of them prove to be quite as they first appeared.
Relationships: Jess Mariano/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 95
Kudos: 101





	1. She's Very Clockwork Orange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke’s waitress, Ella Stevens, returns to work after a couple weeks off. However, her afternoon is disrupted by an unpleasant new coworker.

Tying her hair into a messy updo, looking like a disheveled ballerina, Ella nudged the door open with her elbow and made her way into Luke’s. She shed her jean jacket and her bag, hanging them on the hook near the door. Wrapping her extra flannel snug around the hips of her floral dress, she surmised the state of the diner. The early birds hadn’t yet arrived for dinner but the lunch rush had long since dissipated, so she had some time to prepare. 

“Hey Luke!” she called towards the stairs, beginning her routine without having to be asked. Ella knew he would be on his lunch break, up in the apartment. 

Having worked at the diner for around two years, she managed to rack up the tips and keep the place cleaner than Luke would ever think to. She washed her hands, soaping vigorously, and began wiping down the counters and tables, save for the one which was occupied. Humming a song under her breath, she started a fresh pot of coffee in case anyone came in for a post-work, pre-dinner pick-me-up. Pieces had already begun to fall out of her bun, blonde waves in her hazel eyes. She blew them out of her field of view. For what felt like the thousandth time, she checked the salt shakers. One was only three-fourths full, and she took a moment to debate whether she needed to refill it, holding it at eye-level. 

“‘Edge of Seventeen,’” a voice announced from behind her, uncomfortably close to her ear. 

Letting out a yelp of surprise, Ella dropped the shaker and whipped around with her hand flying to the chain around her neck, an old method of calming herself down. The sound of the glass shaker shattering rang out in the near-empty restaurant. The first thing she noticed was his smile: small and smug and crooked. He uttered a laugh under his breath. 

“Stevie Nicks fan, huh? And a little clumsy, it would seem,” he continued, raising an eyebrow.

“Who the hell are you? Get out from behind the counter!” she ordered, her tone bitter and voice raised. She waved his hands at him angrily, attempting to push him around the corner. Though she tried, he wouldn’t budge, only stood there with that shit-eating smirk and his arms crossed over his chest. 

Huffing out in frustration, she mirrored his stance. Neither of them moved for a moment, an Old West style standoff. Then, she bellowed up the stairs: “Luke! We’re getting robbed very slowly!”

The boy across from her let out another chuckle. 

“Shut up,” she hissed at him. 

Luke came rushing down the stairs, dressed in the outfit he seemed to wear everyday. His boots thudded heavily on the old wooden floor, and all the urgency left his frame once he saw the situation before him. 

“Oh...Ella, sorry, I forgot to tell you,” he began dejectedly, sighing and bowing his head. “You had your volunteering thing the past couple weeks so I didn’t mention-”

“What? That we’re letting people like this shi-”

“This is my nephew, Jess,” Luke cut her off, watching as her face reddened in both anger and embarrassment. Some kid had tried to steal a muffin last winter and he’d had no idea such a young woman could have that amount of colorful words stored in her memory. It was best to stop the diatribe before it started.

Her face froze momentarily, and her shoulders untensed just a touch. “Ah.  _ This  _ is the nephew.”

The boy stuck out his hand to her. “Jess Mariano.”

She snorted slightly and turned back to the counter, crouching down to grab a rag and the trash can from the cupboard below. Popping back up and beginning to clean the salt, she finally introduced herself in the flattest tone she could muster, without shaking his hand. “Eleanor Stevens.”

“Charmed,” Jess replied dryly. 

“Ditto,” she shot back. 

Luke groaned. “Look, you don’t have to be best friends, but I need you to be civil by dinner. I’ll be prepping.”

Before Ella could question him, Luke disappeared into the back kitchen with an eye roll to rival her own. Babette and Maury had watched the whole scene, then finishing up and leaving some cash on the table.

“Bye, Ella! See you tomorrow, sugar!” Babette called as they left, the old woman sporting a shiny smile despite the tense air. 

“Thanks guys! Have a good night!” She kept sweeping the salt into the can, but a bright expression lit up her face as she spoke to the familiar couple. 

Jess walked a couple steps closer to her and leaned against the counter, hovering as she cleaned the mess. She didn’t acknowledge him. 

“Ella, huh?” he asked casually. 

“I’ve been known to respond to it,” she said. 

Sighing through his nose, Jess wrinkled his brow. “You can really turn that good nature on and off like a switch, can’t you?”

“A blessing and a curse.” Shaking the salty rag out and into the trash, she moved on to clearing away the shards of glass.

  
“Don’t cut yourself,” he warned mockingly. 

“Shove it. You keep bothering me and I’ll stab you with a butterknife.” Still not looking up at him, she finished with the salt shaker mess and grabbed the refill salt from beneath the counter. As she meandered through the tables, she checked the other shakers, assessing them as she went. 

“Why a butterknife?”

“It’s duller, so it would take longer. Maximum suffering,” she told him in a clipped tone. 

“Very  _ Clockwork Orange _ ,” he surmised, trailing her like a lost puppy. 

“Yes, I’m a real horrorshow,” she sighed, unscrewing a shaker cap. 

His eyebrows shot up, impressed. Watching her move, he noticed the absolutely destroyed state of her black converse and how her thick blonde hair threatened to spill from its bun at any moment. It was a hasty kind of beauty, but he didn’t mind it. “You’ve read it?”

“And I’ve seen it. Honestly, I prefer Kubrick,” she admitted, the words slipping half-hearted from her lips as she worked. Glancing up at the clock, she noticed it was only 3:15. Many more hours with this new jackass. 

He gasped dramatically. “For shame, choosing a movie over a book!”

Ella groaned, throwing her head back as she felt him judging her over her shoulder. “Ugh, would you quit evaluating my taste and get some work done, Mariano?”

“As you wish,” he said, shrugging as he went to clear Babette and Maury’s table. 

“Okay, the  _ Princess Bride _ movie is  _ definitely  _ better than the book!”

  
  



	2. A Regular Keats and a Regular Mozart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella bask in boredom and argue over various authors.

Evening light waned in the Connecticut sky. Ella watched the stars appear slowly, in her usual corner table near the windowed wall at Luke’s. She’d tried to get through her calculus homework three times, but eventually her brain would start frying and she would have to take a break. Lane would have been with her, but she was grounded yet again. So, Ella was flying solo. It didn’t bother her. Most days she wasn’t on shift, she ended up at the small corner table anyway, pouring over her textbooks with occasional interludes for tea and a burger around dinnertime. Luke had long since cleared away her dishes and left her by her lonesome. 

After a few unproductive minutes, watching the townspeople walk by, she glanced at her watch and found it was nearly half past eight. The twinkling string lights illuminated the main streets and the town’s gazebo. It was beautiful. No matter how many times she sat and watched the cozy yellowish glow envelope Stars Hollow night, she never got tired of it. She had a decent view of the sky from her bedroom window at home, but Luke’s view of town was far better. It was one of the many reasons she preferred to spend her nights away from the little blue house near the edge of town. 

She had just gone back to the nearly illegible problem below her when Jess’s knuckles rapped on her table. A nervous blush crept up on her freckled cheeks though she hadn’t visibly startled. Her heart had still skipped a beat at the noise. He sat down across from her without being invited, a smirk on his face and an apron around his hips. 

“What are you doing here? You’re not on shift today,” he asked. The sarcastic twinkle had never left his eyes the entirety of the time they had been working together thus far. 

“I like to study here on my days off,” she told him, her pencil still in her head. She debated ignoring him and going back to her notes, but decided to humor him for at least a few minutes. Apparently, it was the first time he hadn’t been out raising hell on an evening shift she wasn’t working. It had been a part of her routine for so long, she found it odd anyone would be surprised to find her there on a free weeknight. “What are you doing sitting down here when you’re supposed to be working?”

Jess chuckled a little. “Thursday nights apparently aren’t too big around here. Luke’s already closing it up. I just clocked out.” He paused to untie his apron and throw it over his shoulder, as if to prove his point. “I knew this town was boring, but damn. Do you really not hang out anywhere else on your days off besides the place you  _ already _ work?” he asked. 

Ella shrugged, looking down at her work again. Just the sight of it made her insides squirm in frustration. “There’s places to go.”

“Well, could you let me in on them?” 

Pursing her lips, she narrowed her eyes at him. “Hm?”

“Show me around. Apparently you know of some interesting spots, and I haven’t found any yet.”

She scoffed. “You’ve been here almost a month and no place in Stars Hollow has piqued your interest at all?”

“No,” he told her nonchalantly. Though he didn’t continue, she only stared at him suspiciously. Sighing through his nose, he produced a deck of cards from the pocket of his jeans. He fanned them out in front of her, the deck with wrinkles and scuffed spots on the royal blue designs. “Pick a card.”

Instead of going along with his trick, she rolled her eyes dramatically and shut the textbook in front of her. “Why don’t I just cut this magic show short and give you the world’s fastest tour?”

“Oooo, so impatient.” Jess pretended to be offended. “Homework makes you  _ cruel _ .”

. . .

Arms crossed over her chest, Ella strolled down the dimly lit Stars Hollow sidewalk with her boots tapping pleasantly on the slightly damp cement, Jess alongside her. A November breeze blew past them, cooling her flushed cheeks. For the life of her, she could not figure out why he had asked her to show him around, she hated to admit to herself how antsy she was feeling. She would have regretted it more than she already did if she didn’t trust Luke so much. There was no fear in her heart, only anxiety and confusion. She could smell the autumn in the air. The wind swirled around them, forming a tiny tornado of dead leaves in the center of the street. A frosty bite, a crispness, had arrived about a week before. The snow would follow soon enough.

“That’s the bookstore,” she said, nodding over to Stars Hollow Books on the left as they neared it. “I’m gonna assume you’ve been there.”

Jess smiled proudly. “She’s a natural Sherlock Holmes.”

A little smirk crossed her face, brightening up her hazel eyes. In the light of the streetlamps, Jess could see the golden specks swirled in the pools of her greenish irises. The red glints in her loose blonde braid shone, too. A faded green messenger bag weighed down her right shoulder and an old peacoat was draped around her small frame. She wasn’t the shortest girl, but she was still nearly a head below him. After a moment, he broke his concentration from her form as she pointed out a large, barn-like building on the right. 

“That’s Miss Patty’s. I’m sure you’ve done your best to disorder the peace in there, too. Steal a bunch of tutus of something,” she said, though her tone wasn’t angry, just knowing, verging on a joke. 

“I have  _ not _ ,” he assured her dramatically. “I am a stranger to that realm.”

She put her hands up in surrender. “Well, if you decide on the studio as your next target, you leave the piano alone, alright?”

“What’s so special about the piano?” he asked, his hands stuffed deeply into his pockets as the wind whistled once again. 

“Nothing in particular. I play it for rehearsals sometimes when Mrs. Rothschild, the regular pianist, is out. The first two weeks you were here, she had a knee replacement and there was a recital, so I had to sub in. I had no time left to work at all. But Miss Patty gave me volunteer hours for school, so it was okay,” she explained. The rogue strands of hair blew away from her face, and Jess could see the frosted roses blooming on her freckled cheeks. Autumn had come with a particularly harsh chill. 

“Huh,” he said, looking at her quizzically. 

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Just spit it out, Mariano,” she pressed, her voice light. 

“I just didn’t see you as a piano player,” he told her. 

“Well, what’d you see me as? If you say tambourine, we’re never speaking again,” she warned, giggling slightly as she spoke. 

Jess chuckled breathily in response. “I don’t know. Guitar, maybe.”

She hummed thoughtfully, nodding as though the assessment meant anything specific. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You should.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

There was a beat of comfortable silence between them, and she let her eyes longer on his shoes. His jeans were frayed at the ends, just a bit too long for him. It made her feel like smiling, though she didn’t quite know why. 

“What’s New York like?” she asked out of the blue, passing by a few strangers as they walked. Soon, they would turn right, away from the edge of town and into the outskirts. Jess didn’t know it yet, but he was walking her home. She had a date with her dishwasher set for half past nine. 

He tilted a sideways look at her. “You’ve never been?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never really been anywhere.”

The sentence struck a chord within him, deep in his gut. She didn’t look sad, and she didn’t sound it either, but something about the phrase she had uttered felt so devastated. Maybe even hopeless, but he didn’t let it shake his exterior. “Well, it’s loud. It’s flashy. You can buy sex for five dollars on every single street corner.”

Ella snorted a laugh. “Oh, then I’ll  _ definitely  _ have to make it there sometime.”

He smiled; her joviality was growing since she’d gotten her nose out of the calculus textbook. Clearing his throat, he took another shot, his tone more serious. “No, but, it’s really...it’s very alive. There’s always movement.”

“So, it’s the opposite of here?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” he agreed. 

“You like it better there, I take it?”

“The understatement of the century.”

“Sorry to hear that,” she said. In the back of her mind, she remembered she was supposed to be giving him a tour, but he didn’t seem to care that the conversation had veered from its original purpose. 

Jess shrugged, cavalier. “It’s what it is.”

“How poetic of you,” she mocked. “You’re a regular Keats.”

He groaned, shaking his head. “Don’t tell me you like Keats.”

“You’re on dangerous ground,” she told him gravely. They had turned down a gravel road, lined with quaint houses, which seemed to decrease in quality the farther down one walked. 

“I just wish he would make his points a little faster. Time is money, and poets almost never take that universal law into consideration,” he argued, a crooked smirk ever-present. 

Sighing in disappointment, Ella began to speak with her hands. “It’s about taking the moment, taking the artwork, for the simple beauty of it. Just letting it wash over you, letting the words radiate out. Haven’t you ever read  _ Portrait of the Artist _ ?”

“I tried. Modernism is just poetry masquerading as fiction.”

Ella gasped dramatically, bringing her hands to her heart as though she were wounded. He could see her feigned grief in the light of the many street lamps which buzzed beside them. Apparently even far-off residential areas were alight in Stars Hollow. “Blasphemy!”

For perhaps the first time since they’d met, Jess laughed. A true, genuine laugh, free from his usual sardonic layering. It made a grin appear on Ella’s face, and she almost felt sorry when they reached the decrepit mailbox which read  _ Stevens _ in faded black paint. 

“I’m afraid we’ll have to take a raincheck on this tour,” she said, opening the box and checking for mail. There were a couple bills, and advertisements from various colleges she knew she wouldn’t be able to afford. 

Jess sighed in defeat. “I have to say, you did a subpar job. You didn’t even point out the sock hop where the young men and women fraternize on Friday nights!”

She nodded, accepting his criticism. “Well, next time I’ll show you where to buy a malt for the girl you’re courting.”

“As you should,” he concluded. 

Dropping the act, she furrowed her brows. “Can you make it back? Or have I led you too far down the road less traveled by?”

“I think I can manage,” he said.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“It appears that way.”

“I’ll have a Keats for you. Maybe a Dickinson, too,” she said, visions of her crowded bookshelf filling her head. “Though, you might not be ready for her yet.”

“Alright, but in exchange you’ll be receiving a Hemingway,” he warned, preparing to turn on his heel and begin the walk back to Luke’s. 

“Hardly an even trade, but I’ll accept the terms.” 

. . .

Jess sat behind the counter with a Kerouac held open in his right hand, the business rushing around him. The clock ticked rhythmically above the door, and when he looked up he saw it was a quarter to five already. He thought it odd Ella hadn’t arrived yet, but he shrugged it off. Why should he care where she was? Coffee steamed from the pot behind him, and the evening chatter was beginning to rise in volume. Over the past few weeks of living in the diner, he had learned not to make eye contact with any customer whatsoever, and he could usually get through a chapter or two in peace. About ten pages later, the door opened and Ella’s footfalls snapped heavily around, as she hung her coat and bag, then grabbed her apron from the back. He smirked as he watched her bustling around. She always seemed to be in a hurry, with her hair falling from whatever updo she pulled it back into before work. There were holes and runs in her stockings, but it matched the vibe of her plaid dress and combat boots well enough. 

Clearing her throat, she took a moment to catch her breath when she reemerged and surveyed the busy diner. She grabbed her pad of paper from the pocket of her white apron, but found she could see no one in need of her assistance at the current moment.

“Something wrong, honey?” Jess piped up, teasing, though he didn’t take his eyes from the words before him.

She raised an eyebrow at him and scoffed. “Don’t call me that. And yes, I’m a very busy woman.”

“Well, color me impressed,” he drawled flatly. Then, after a moment, he put down his reading. He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a thin, weathered book and held it out to her wordlessly.

A tired smile crossed her lips, taking her book back and running her thumbs over the familiar cover art. “Ah, my favorite. The formidable Miss Dickinson.”

“That she is,” he agreed, nodding as he cast his Kerouac off to the cabinet beside him. It had only taken him about two days to get through it, though he’d kept forgetting to return it to her. A wide grin blossomed on her face. 

“You liked her?” she asked expectantly. 

Nodding, Jess began refilling two or three of the customers’ coffee cups on the counter in front of them. “She certainly gets the message across much quicker than some others.”

“Well, at least you have  _ some _ taste,” she said. “I’ve still got about fifty pages of the Hemingway. Not entirely unreadable, but I can definitely tell he was drunk for eighty percent of his life.”

“But that’s the beauty of it!” Jess urged. 

“Man, and you were just starting to acquire an air of refinement. We’ll continue this again when you finish Keats and agree that I’m right,” she quipped, turning her view back to the customers. 

“Well, get ready for the disappointment of a lifetime.” Jess could see her getting lost in her own, frazzled head and let his eyes linger on her, biting his lip and hiding a smirk.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Ella found a blue pen. On the other side, she found a pencil. Eventually, she discovered three more in her messy bun and shoved them in the pocket of her apron. She groaned softly at herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

Jess chuckled. “What could possibly be giving you a headache on this lovely Friday afternoon in the utopia that is Stars Hollow, Connecticut?”

“Nothing,” she told him evasively, hands on her hips. Luke was chatting up the early birds. No one had come through the front door since she’d arrived, but she kept a trained eye in that direction. Either Babette or Miss Patty would show up soon enough. Likely Miss Patty, to grab some food before the seven o’clock meditation class, which mostly involved the students lying on the floor asleep. 

“Oh, so nothing’s what made you forget about your five new pencil accessories?” he asked. 

Rolling her eyes at his insistence, she finally turned back to him. “I had to go to New Britain to visit my aunt. She’s getting married and she’s making me play piano for it, for some ungodly reason.”

“Are you any good?”

She scoffed. “Oh, yeah, I’m a regular Mozart. No, I’m terrible.”

“Now, I’m sure that’s an exaggeration.”

“Trust me,” she told him. “When my mom taught me, I think she thought with enough time and energy I’d at least get halfway to her level. But, sadly, no dice.”

Jess was about to continue the conversation, the gears turning in his head for the next giggle-worthy quip, when Luke finally returned from arguing (shouting) with Taylor about Christmas decorations. It was still a whole week until December. And no one in the town save for Taylor was holding out any hope Luke would decorate at all the entire holiday season. 

“Hey, Ella, how ya doin’?” Luke greeted her offhandedly, tearing a few tickets and giving them to Caesar in the back. 

“She has a headache and is single-handedly ruining the piano as an instrument, apparently,” Jess informed his uncle on her behalf. 

She nodded, then her eyes brightened when she saw Patty walk in, right on schedule. “Just this once, your nephew is correct. Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

With a sardonic tilt of the head, she left the two of them behind. She pulled out one utensil from her wide writing arsenal and went over to greet Miss Patty, who made her lean down for a kiss on the cheek. Ella obliged, though red as a tomato. It shocked Jess how sweet she could be with the customers. Most of the time all he got was a razor-sharp tongue. She had a goodness within her he already knew he could never live up to. It made his heart do a little twist, though he would never in a million years let her know. 

“Jess?” Luke asked, breaking his nephew out of his daze. 

“Yes, Uncle Luke?” Jess replied, his usual sarcastic mask back on. 

Luke sighed, but ignored Jess’s attempts to irritate him with the formal address. “Less staring, more working, alright?”

  
  



	3. In the Company of Anne Sexton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a fist-fight, Jess invites himself on a carriage ride with Ella during the Bracebridge Dinner.

Thumbing through one of her most beloved copies of Virginia Woolf, Ella sat on the steps of Stars Hollow High waiting anxiously for Lane to emerge. They walked out most every day, with Lane on her way home and Ella on her way to the diner, but Lane had informed her during lunch she would have to stop by the cheerleading coach’s room for some secret business. Ella didn’t bother asking any questions, having seen the rabid excitement in Lane’s eyes. She had a feeling she would get let in on whatever was going on soon enough. Maybe even that evening, as she, Rory, Lane, and Lorelai had their annual viewing of  _ It’s A Wonderful Life _ planned. Then, possibly,  _ Die Hard _ . Usually, though, they just ended up talking through Bruce Willis’ quest. Snow blanketed the ground, but had grayed in the two days since it had fallen. There had been no melt, and street sweepers had cast it off in large, rocky clumps. Ella wondered at how magical snow looked falling, and what a nuisance it became in its aftermath. Like the happiness of a new marriage and the pain of a divorce. She was just getting to one of her favorite passages in  _ To the Lighthouse _ when she heard the roar of a crowd growing on the lawn before her. 

Looking up with curious hazel eyes, she found a group circling two boys in the midst of a fist fight. She only needed a moment longer to identify Jess as the aggressor in the center of the swarm of teens, though the other boy was holding his own perfectly well. Without thinking, she shoved her book in her bag, slinging it over her shoulder and running over, careful not to slip on the icy patches in her black Doc Martens. 

“Jess!” she called, pushing her way through the hoard of pubescent teens. Obviously, she got no response, but that wasn’t exactly the intent of the exclamation in the first place. Her feet carried her farther into the brawl before her mind could stop them, and soon enough she had Jess by the shoulders, pulling him away. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

He squirmed in her grasp, wondering who’d had the nerve to touch him. Eventually she took him around the waist and pried him away from his opponent, who was panting and bleeding from one lip. The crowd began to dissipate almost instantly, victims of a short attention span, though a few stragglers remained. Ella’s heart pounded in her chest and she felt a little sick to her stomach at the sight of the violence. Her veins buzzed with adrenaline, though she had only been involved in a small fraction of the action. 

“Get off me!” Jess yelled, still not entirely sure who had grabbed him, but able to deduce it was a girl from the height and the feminine quality of the voice. When he fought though, the rest of the world usually became nothing more than a blur but the person in front of him. 

When they were far enough away from the other guy and she felt mostly confident the incident was over, she finally released him, though he was larger than her and she had been hanging on by a thread anyway. 

“Jesus, Jess!” she shouted when he finally turned around to look at her.

“Eleanor?” he asked, shocked to find her there. 

A startling anger raged in his eyes. What concerned her more, though, was the bruise already blooming on the apple of his cheek and his bloodied knuckles. The dichotomy before her had her stomach doing flips. She’d heard plenty about this side of Jess, but had never had the misfortune of seeing it before. His hair was mussed up, and his lips were pressed in a thin line. The smirk she always found was gone, as was the joking air in his voice. 

She went against her better judgement and took a step forward, eyes on his injuries. 

“Back off!” Jess snapped immediately, beginning to leave. She recoiled at his volume. 

But, her voice followed him up the road as he made his way for Luke’s. He hoped to sneak past his uncle without having to endure an interrogation. “I’m trying to help you, jackass! What the hell was that?!”

“Peter Smith’s an asshole, that’s what that was! Now, I suggest you run along!” 

She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, Jess, you don’t get to walk away from me! Rory  _ just _ reamed you for that stunt you pulled at Doose’s! I thought you were gonna get it together for Luke!”

“Yeah, well, sorry to disappoint!” Jess roared, winded but maintaining his fury.

As she swallowed down her irritation, the redness began to drain from her face. She knew it was no use to argue with him when he was in such a fiery state. For a minute, she debated leaving, going back to find Lane as she planned. Instead, she grabbed his wrist and spoke again in a calm, resigned tone.

“Jess, stop.”

He whipped around to face her again, pulling his arm back from her grasp, hiding a wince at the throbbing pain in his raw knuckles. “Don’t touch me right now!”

Ella held her hands up in surrender instantly, though she stood firm. “Okay. I’m sorry. But you’re not gonna get past Luke like this, if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re gonna need to at least cool off a little first.”

Sighing through his nose, he stayed silent. At that moment, it was as good as a verbal concession or agreement. He was just beginning to catch his breath, his pulse thumping loudly in his ears.

“You wanna go get some ice? I’m sure the nurse has some,” she offered, and Jess felt his confusion growing at her kindness. 

He shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets despite the pain. “No.”

“Alright. Look, I’ll go clock in. I’ll tell Luke you had some test to make up or something. Go fix yourself up somewhere and you might be able to fool him,” she suggested, working out the kinks inside her head. Luke was a good guy, but he wasn’t the most observant person she knew. She suspected if Jess could get the bleeding to stop he might get by unscathed. Though she was more doubtful about the bruise on his cheek, she decided it was better for Jess to be placated before he returned to work anyway. 

Jess nodded as Ella turned back to go find Lane. She felt slightly better, but still a little anxious about the possibility of a fight between Jess and Luke which still remained. It was one thing to work with them when they were at their usual level of bickering. She didn’t know if she could handle an entire shift of them screaming at each other. 

“Thank you,” Jess muttered when she turned on her heel, only just loud enough for her to hear. 

She sighed a little in relief, tossing a glance at him over her shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

. . .

Ella licked the last bit of melted marshmallow from her thumb, having eaten more than a few of the s’mores they had prepared with skewers over the stove burner. Instead of  _ Die Hard _ , they had elected for the 1950s version of  _ A Christmas Carol _ . They were watching as the ghost of Christmas future showed Scrooge his own grave. Lorelai sat above her on the couch, french-braiding her hair, while Lane and Rory shared a bag of chips on the floor next to her. Ella loved the Gilmore house, with its homey decor and welcoming atmosphere. Many times, she envied Rory for the kind of mother she had. All times, Ella felt more love in the Gilmore house than in the Stevens house. 

“What do you want written or your gravestone?” Lane asked, her eyes trained on the screen, the picture reflecting back on her glasses. 

Humming thoughtfully, Ella went with the first idea that popped in her head: “Here lies Ella Stevens, soon to become the world’s best ghost.”

“An award-winning haunter,” Lorelai quipped. 

“My biggest, most long-term ambition,” Ella agreed. Soon, her hair was done and Lorelai tied it off with a proud smile. 

“Okay, Rapunzel, my work here is complete,” she said. 

“Thank you.”

“Well, now that that’s over with, let’s hear it,” Lane demanded, turning at a ninety degree angle to face Ella expectantly. 

Ella furrowed her brows. “What?”

“What happened with Jess? You yelled at each other in the courtyard today, right?” Rory asked. 

“Nothing happened,” she assured them. “I simply suggested he could wait for his knuckles to clot before he tried to fly under Luke’s radar. Unfortunately, it was an uphill battle. Once he saw his purple cheek, Luke dragged him up to the apartment by his collar. But, he was back down in one piece fifteen minutes later. Wasn’t too catastrophic.”

“That kid is bad news,” Lorelai groaned, shaking her head. “He’s got Sid Vicious written all over him.”

Scoffing, flopped down on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. “Really? I see him more as a Richard Hell type.”

“Well, that makes me feel better,” Lorelai mocked. “I’m serious, Ella, that is a screwed-up, angry kid. The vandalism, the fighting. He touches a hair on your head, and I will personally organize a whole torches and pitchforks event.”

“We can make it like a parade,” Rory suggested cheerfully. “And then Dean can punch him as a big finale. They can’t stand each other.”

“You guys have gotta calm down. We work together, that’s all,” she reasoned. “I only helped him out to avoid a major migraine. The grunting I’ve gotten used to, but man when Luke gets going…”

“Tell me about it,” Lorelai grumbled. “Just promise me you won’t be wooed by that unwashed miscreant.”

Rolling her eyes at the dramatics, raising her right hand and holding down her pinky with her thumb. “Scout’s honor.”

. . .

Twirling her key ring around her finger once for good luck, Ella made her way up the path to the Independence Inn, Doc Martens crunching through the packed white snow. The storm had come and gone, but the damage was done all over New England. The fancy invitees for the annual Bracebridge Dinner were snowed in, so Ella had the pleasure of being invited in their place. She was almost excited, having the opportunity to dress up and her old junker out, since she usually walked everywhere. Opening the giant french doors, she was enveloped in the Inn’s warmth, and she could smell the extravagant dinner cooking already. It made her stomach growl. Her cheeks pinked up pleasantly, and she shed her peacoat almost immediately. She smoothed down the front of her simple black dress, stealthily looking at her patterned tights to make sure they hadn’t sustained any runs or rips since she’d donned them an hour earlier. So far, she’d been successful. 

“Ella!” Rory greeted her cheerfully, her voice like a bell chiming in the busy noises around them. 

“Ah, it’s been so long!” Ella joked, rushing up to Rory and Lorelai, giving them hugs. 

“So, no plus ones I take it?” Lorelai asked, looking at the girl who stood with only the shoulder bag she used to carry school books and her jacket in one of her hands. 

Ella smiled thinly, shaking her head. A bashful lilt came into her voice. “No, I invited them. My little brother actually  _ was _ gonna come and then this afternoon...”

“Well, that just means no one will be hogging you tonight!” Lorelai cut in, sunshine in her voice. It made Ella’s smile grow wider and into one more genuine.

. . .

Descending the stairs after unpacking in her room, she caught sight of most everyone else arriving. She had the habit of being early to everything. Equipped with only her jacket in her arms, which included a volume of Anne Sexton poetry in one of the pockets, she felt a wave of anxiety. It wasn’t exactly shyness, only uneasiness. It seemed everyone in the room had a partner, but she’d come alone. There were two beds in her room, and one would remain entirely untouched. Not that bringing Adam along was the ideal situation anyway, her little brother had actually become kinda funny after entering middle school. He wouldn’t have been the worst possible company. In a crowd full of friends and family, she felt so utterly alone. 

Lane arrived eventually, along with her mother. Mrs. Kim was not the biggest fan of Ella, what with her dark makeup and clothing, her unsavory homelife. Over the years, however, she’d earned a bit more credit with Lane’s mother due to her grades and time working at the diner. Ella marveled at the beautiful floral arrangements and mahogany adornments, wandering around mostly silent while Rory and Lorelai rushed around, finalizing things and greeting people. Her eyes roamed over the crowd, and she spotted Luke and Jess arriving at the door. Jess’s big brown eyes caught her own. He offered her a teasing wave, and she smirked in response, nodding a little. After a moment under his gaze, she let her eyes fall as her cheeks warmed, and she felt at the chain around her neck as a reflex. 

. . .

Sniffing slightly in the frigid air, Ella bit her lip as she ran her eyes over the familiar words of Sexton’s poetry, waiting as the many carriages of horses peeled away. Watching Rory squish into a carriage with Dean and his little sister had been entertaining, but she had felt some shameful envy nonetheless. The seat next to her just looked so empty. But she only sighed, turning back to her reading after marveling at the beauty of the sparkly, frozen nature around her. In all honesty, she had no interest in going on a pathetic carriage ride alone, but Rory and Lorelai had gone to so much trouble, who was she to deny the opportunity? She barely noticed when the horses began trotting along, the winter wonderland of Stars Hollow passing her slowly. 

“Eleanor!” she heard, jumping slightly but rolling her eyes. There was pretty much only one person in Stars Hollow who called her by her full name. Before she could even look to see his face, Jess hopped in the carriage from the side, nearly stumbling but ending up impossibly smooth. 

“What the hell, Jess?!” she exclaimed, marking her place in her book with an old receipt from Doose’s. 

“Gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?” he drawled, cracking his usual crooked smirk. 

Sighing, Ella mirrored his smile in spite of herself, running a nervous hand through the ends of her hair. “No, actually, I don’t think that’s a requirement.”

“Exactly. It’s one of many perks of associating with me.” Jess put on thick gray gloves as they spoke.

She scoffed. “Yes, I’m so honored, Mariano.”

“You should be.”

Ella chuckled breathily, clearing her throat as a pause stood between the two of them. Her eyes lingered on the bruise on his cheek, nearly invisible, having yellowed over the three days since he’d sustained it. 

“Pretty, aren’t I?” he asked. 

She blushed, looking away as her face dropped. “Sorry.”

Jess furrowed his brows, losing his teasing air. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Nodding, she sat up straighter and trained her view on the scenery. 

“Look, I didn’t mean to scare you the other day,” he said, tilting his head to try to catch her eyes again.

“Don’t flatter yourself. You didn’t...you  _ don’t _ scare me,” she assured him, forcing her tone to remain light. She felt as though they might be dancing around a forbidden subject, she just didn’t know what it was. 

“Okay. Didn’t mean to be presumptuous,” he said, leaning back in the cushioned seat of the carriage. The clomping of the horses hooves offered a rhythmic undercurrent to their conversation, soft but constant. 

Raising her eyebrows, she finally turned back to him. “Well, you didn’t  _ mean _ to be presumptuous but you were still being presumptuous.”

“Alright, sorry,” he said, slightly huffy, eyes wide and gloved hands raised in surrender.

“Apology accepted.”

“I’m happy we sorted that out, then.” His tone was dejected but she didn’t let it rile her. 

“Me too,” she breathed slowly, watching a white cloud form in the air with her words.

Regarding her as she turned away again, Jess tasted the crisp frost of the wind. One side of her hair was pinned back, the rest cascading down her shoulder. She wore dark eye makeup and something shiny on her lips. But still, she was bundled in her old black peacoat. It reminded him of the beatniks. All she needed were big square glasses. He noticed how thin her stockings were, how she lacked gloves or a scarf or a hat. Just looking at her made him unconsciously.

“Are you here by yourself?” he asked. “Anne Sexton keeping you company?”

“I am. And she is. Did Luke drag you along?”

Jess shrugged. “Sort of. It’s better than a night of scraping greasy plates at the diner.”

“What high standards you have,” she said. “Are you scraping plates over winter break or are you going back to New York?”

“My mom didn’t want me up there,” he said nonchalantly.

“She said that to you?” she asked, eyebrows raised angrily. 

They were passing the town square, decorated with snowmans for the town competition. At night, to Ella, they looked like the blue ghosts in a Charles Dickens story.

“Luke told me it was his idea that I should stay. It wasn’t his idea.”

Humming in irritated acknowledgement, she crossed her arms tighter around herself. Her ears were going numb in the icy winter breeze. “Well, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be at work everyday the next two weeks, silently protesting everyone else’s holiday cheer. You’re welcome to join.”

Jess smiled. “Will there be complaints of all the noise, noise, noise?”

“Every year.” She nodded in commiseration, a sardonic twinkle in her eye. 

“Looking forward to it.”

  
  



	4. Hester's My New Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess takes Ella out for something other than ice cream to cheer her up following a strange interaction with her father. Afterwards, Luke gives Jess some insight into Ella’s past.

Thorns prickled the soles of her feet as she danced around the rows of red tables in the diner, almost through the Sunday morning brunch rush. Jess was handling the coffee, Luke the cash register, and Ella the plates. The hot white ceramic had quickly warmed her hands to beyond feeling their burn. The new year had come and gone with snow, still bunched up in chilly, grayish piles on the sides of the road. She was eager for her break when she could stand out in the cool Connecticut wind. She wondered why a random Sunday in late January was ending up to be one of the busiest days she’d ever experienced at Luke’s. Jess was clearly pissed, an angry cloud over his face. She knew he would have preferred to spend his day reading or blasting music in the apartment, or trudging through the streets, scaring small children with one look or whatever it was the townspeople said he did. 

Blowing hair from her eyes, she took a second behind the counter, wiping her hands on her apron and glancing up at the big ticking clock. Almost two in the afternoon. Her shift was over at three, and she let out a small sigh of relief. Scanning the diner, she found only a few patrons left, excluding Kirk. He could sit at the counter for hours doing absolutely nothing. Ella had learned just to tune the strange man out. 

“You alive, honey?” Jess asked, walking up next to her near the door to the kitchen, making a fresh pot of coffee. 

Ella rolled her eyes at the name and shot him a pointed look. He smirked but held his hands up in surrender mockingly. 

“Think so.” She swallowed dryly, crossing her arms over her chest. There was something so delightful about the end of a brutal rush. The customers were almost always pleasant, but damn were they demanding. “And you?”

“I’ll survive.”

“That’s the goal.”

He chuckled and they stood in comfortable silence. Absently watching Luke ring someone up, she listened to the sizzle of various meats and carbs from Caesar’s grill behind her. Her pulse slowed momentarily, but her moment of bliss was cut short when she saw a tall, dark-haired man stomp through the doorway. Immediately, her hazel eyes widened with panic. She spun around and Jess looked over.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, tiredly, as she rolled her eyes. 

“ _ Language, _ ” Jess chided her. “What’s the matter?”

She clicked her tongue in annoyance and shot him a glance. “My dad just walked in.”

Furrowing his brows, confused at her anger, he didn’t have time to formulate a quip or a question before she turned away from him again. Ella crossed her arms and took a step forward to stand beside Luke. 

Jess shrugged to himself, then went back to the coffee, hoping he wouldn’t burn it. He’d catch a lot of hell from Luke if they had to scrub black sludge out of the glass pot. When he faced the front, waiting for the brew to finish, he saw how Ella’s demeanor had changed entirely. She stood rigidly, her fingers rolling the chain around her neck anxiously. Luke was chatting with the man, apparently Ella’s father, and yelled his order back to Caesar without having to be told. There was a painfully awkward silence before Luke spoke again. 

“So, how ya doin’ Jake? Holdin’ up okay?” he asked. 

Jake shrugged, thumbs in the belt loops of his worn blue jeans. “We’re fine. I mean, alright. I don’t think I could do it without Fiona.”

“Right.” Luke nodded. 

Ella scoffed tensely. 

“What was that, Ellie?” Jake asked, accusatory.

Scrunching up her nose at what had once been an affectionate nickname, Ella shook her head. “Nothing. Just thinking about  _ The Scarlet Letter _ . I think Hester’s my new hero.”

Before he could stop himself, Jess chuckled and tried to cover it up with a cough. 

Jake narrowed his eyes at his daughter and then turned his gaze to Jess, who had taken the coffee off the burner and was preparing to give people refills. 

“Excuse me? Who’s this?” Jake asked. 

“Nobody,” Jess said immediately, hoping to exit the conversation as quickly as possible. 

“Young man-” Jake began with eyebrows raised, but Ella cut him off. 

“This is Jess. He works here, if you couldn’t gather that.”

“He’s my nephew,” Luke added, hoping to God the order would be ready soon. Wishing to find anybody in the restaurant who was in need of either Jess or Ella’s assistance. 

Nodding and humming suspiciously, Jake eyed Jess for one long, excruciating moment. “I think you might have overdone it on the hair gel, son.”

“Well, I always appreciate feedback,” Jess shot back, no emotion in his face or voice. 

Clearing her throat, Ella pretended to spot someone near the window who needed their order taken. “Yeah. Okay. We’re pretty busy, so…”

Before she could finish her sentence, she stopped herself and started out from behind the counter, giving Jess a gentle push forward by the shoulder so they could both escape. 

“Hey, what the hell?!” Jess murmured in surprise, but she ignored him. She retreated to a random table to make small talk with the customers, asking them about the quality of the food and whether or not they would be needing anything else before she brought the check. 

Periodically, she glanced out of the corner of her eye to watch her father talking with Luke. Even the sight of him now made her stomach flip in worry and grief. It was the ways he had changed. How he always had a bit of five o’clock shadow when before he had been clean-shaven, how he always had a beer in his hand at home when for so many years he had been dry, how his shoulders slumped with an air of hopelessness and he never whistled along to music anymore. In such a short amount of time, she’d had to adapt to an entirely new father, and each time she saw him, she still seemed to feel some residual shock waves. They came with a mixed bag of emotions: guilt, embarrassment, anger, sorrow. Seeing him in a place she usually used as a refuge, one solitary location for normalcy in her life, mostly just filled her with unrest. Maybe a touch of anger too, though it was common. Anxious roses heated up her cheeks, and she shifted uncomfortably on her feet as she spoke with the customers, remembering to force a hospitable smile despite the nerves within. 

When he finally left, a paper bag with  _ Luke’s _ printed on the front crinkling in one of his careworn hands, he didn’t look back to bid her goodbye. Instead, she watched him amble back out of the building. He had his stormy gray eyes downcast on the cracked cement of the sidewalk as he headed back in the direction of their rundown suburb, and soon he had vanished out of her sight. 

“Miss?” a voice brought her back out of her daze. 

Her flush deepened when she saw the customers looking back at her uneasily. Bringing back the winning smile and letting out an apologetic laugh, she finished scribbling a check for them on the pad held in her slightly shaky hands. “Oh, I-I’m sorry. Just thought I saw someone I recognized for a minute.”

They still eyed her curiously but appeared to have been put at ease. She slapped the check down on the red plastic of their table enthusiastically and sing-songed a “Have a nice day!” at them before finally letting out a sigh of relief and returning to her spot behind the counter. She stuffed the pad of paper back into the pocket of her apron and took a moment to collect herself, swallowing thickly and biting the inside of her cheek. It had been weeks, possibly months, since her father had waltzed into the diner while she was on shift. Even longer since he’d ordered the grilled cheese with tomato slices on the side, her mother’s order. She hadn’t expected it to be so jarring, but she was having to restrain herself from clenching her hands into fists. 

Luke looked over at her, crossing his arms and breathing a heavy sigh through his nose. “Look, Ella, if you wanna go unpack the new canned shipment in the stock room for the rest of your shift, that’s-”

“Thanks, that’d be great,” she said dejectedly, already beginning to untie her apron and hanging it on the hook near the kitchen. 

After she’d disappeared into the stock room, hands on her hips, Jess came back around with an already half-empty pot. 

“What was  _ that _ about?” he asked his uncle, eyebrows raised. 

Again, Luke sighed and raised a warning hand to Jess. “Do me a favor and don’t ask.”

. . .

Five minutes left, and Ella hadn’t managed to get through more than one box of stock. Her mind kept wandering up into the sky, to the way her father hadn’t looked back at her. In spite of trying to quit the habit, she had begun biting at her nails, the blue polish chipping off. The old smell of pine was comforting, though. She’d managed to get her heart rate down to the high end of normal by the time Jess knocked twice on the door frame. 

“Hey.”

“Nice conversation starter,” she snapped right away. 

The corners of Jess’s mouth turned up, as he stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the door. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she answered flatly. 

Jess cleared his throat, approaching her at the small table where she was unpacking large red cans of tomatoes. “Luke said it’s calming down out there. We’re both good to go. You wanna get outta here?”

“What do you mean?” she asked off-handedly. Continuing with the work as she spoke, she didn’t even look up at him. 

“I mean let’s go somewhere. Get some ice cream or something?” he proposed casually. 

Ella furrowed her brows. “Why would we get ice cream?”

“Why  _ wouldn’t  _ we get ice cream?”

“Because it’s January.”

“People eat ice cream in January.”

“Yeah, people with no concept of weather.”

Without another word, he grabbed the can from her hands and stuck it back in the box, shutting it before she could react. “Our shift is over. C’mon, I gotta get outta this place.”

She sighed, finally meeting his eyes. He pouted momentarily and it got a smile out of her. “Fine. But we’re doing something else besides ice cream.”

“Fair enough.”

. . .

Flipping through the ninety-nine cent records, Ella listened to the Rancid song playing over the speakers. There was not much to be seen, a couple Fitzgeralds, but she already owned them. Soon, she had moved onto the CDs, though they were not her favorite medium. Jess watched her, her tongue held between her teeth, poking out from her mouth slightly in her concentration. As her eyes roamed over the selection, four o’clock sunlight streamed through the display windows of the music store, adding a glint to her hazel eyes. She took the elastic from her hair and ran her hands through her dark blonde locks, still focused on the bands before her. 

“Ugh, what bastard saw a record and thought: ‘Y’know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna make this smaller and sound worse.’”

“You’re a purist, huh?”

“Aren’t you?” she asked. 

He shrugged. “I dabble in sin.”

Ella tutted in disapproval. “And again, just when you’re start sounding like you’ve got taste.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Shaking her head, she moved over to the new arrivals bin and shuffled through them deftly. “I’m not disappointed, Jess. Admitting your problem is the first step to healing. I’m proud of you.”

A smirk came to his lips at her teasing, and she thought she saw just the hint of a flush color his face. “Well, maybe you can convert me.”

Her smile widened and he spotted a dimple on her left cheek. “Then let the education begin.”

. . .

Ella crept down the hallway, past her father’s and her brother’s bedrooms and shut her own door behind her. The wild period of her youth had come, momentarily, and gone, but she couldn’t resist when Jess had found an early copy of Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits in one of the bins. After going to get pizza, she was practically jumping out of her skin to listen to the record. And it just seemed natural for Jess to come along. He had found it after all. Though as they had walked nearer to her house her palms had gotten sweaty. No one had been in her room in months, and Jess Mariano was the first person she decided to invite over? Someone she had to literally sneak in through the window for fear of her father seeing the boy there? But she’d managed to swallow down her anxiety and regret enough to keep up her usual exterior the entire way over. 

The window practically screeched as she hiked it up, Jess standing outside with the new record under an arm. She put her hand out to help him in, but he hoisted himself up on his own. The house was only a one-story, anyway. After a moment of pause to make sure no one had heard any of their movements and deemed them suspicious, Ella let out a sigh and shut the window again. The January air left a lingering fresh smell in her small bedroom. 

“Alright, I have to go feed the cat before I forget. Don’t...go anywhere,” she said, slightly flustered and awkward. 

He nodded and flashed her smirk that was oddly reassuring, unzipping his jacket. “Yes ma’am.”

Then, she scurried out the door. Jess could hear muffled noise from multiple directions, a TV somewhere, a radio, a blow-dryer, hushed voices. The light was waning outside, winter closing the evening in fast, and a cozy glow came in through her window. Waiting for her to return, Jess ran his eyes over his surroundings. Three of her walls were painted a dark pink, but the wall to the left was painted over entirely with a mural. It caught his attention immediately. It featured a half-sun and half-moon connected in the center, a spray of stars and clouds surrounding it, painted entirely in shades of grey. Next he noticed the bulletin board above her small desk, covered in sketches of ink and pencil, hung neatly in lines. The desktop, likewise, was very well organized. A stack of her textbooks and notebooks sat on one corner, with the rest almost bare. There was a solitary framed photo of a woman holding a baby, but no other decoration. 

Atop the dresser near the window, there was a small collection of cacti in a random assortment of tiny pots, of all different colors, sitting next to a record player. A stack of vinyls stood on the ground near the dresser, and Jess crouched down to inspect them. Obviously, massive amounts of Stevie Nicks, with various other artists. Joy Division, Bowie, Jeff Buckley. KISS was the only one that really surprised him. He put her new vinyl down, with its vibrant green cover and white lettering, near the others. Jess straightened as she reentered, hoping it hadn’t seemed as though he were snooping. 

“The cat is fed?” he asked expectantly, eyebrows raised. 

“Indeed she is.” Ella nodded and shrugged off her peacoat, hanging it over her wooden desk chair. “You can take your coat off, you know. You want a drink or anything?”

He shook his head and shed his own outer layer of clothing, watching out of the corner of his eye as she picked up the new record carefully and a fresh smile blossomed on her face as she let the needle drop onto the shiny black vinyl. Once the guitar had fully kicked in, she sat down on the floor near the end of her bed, which was just a mattress with no boxspring or frame placed directly on the old grayish carpet. Without needing to be asked, he sat down across from her, both of them criss-cross applesauce. Before she could start up a conversation, Jess fished a deck of cards from his back pocket and began shuffling. They had discussed going head to head on the way over.

“Rummy?” he asked.

Ella chuckled at his clipped way of speaking. “Please. But only if you’re ready to lose.”

Arching an eyebrow at her in disbelief, Jess began to deal. “Big talker, huh?”

“Big player, too,” she boasted, shooting him a wink as she collected her cards. 

“We’ll see about that.”

. . .

Biting at his lip, Jess had his brows furrowed as he focused on the cards before him. Ella’s room smelled of rosemary. He assumed it was one of the many candles sitting on the two plastic crates by her bed, serving as nightstands. There was no doubt she was a better player than he had anticipated. The assured look had never left her eyes, as she calmly made her moves and collected more and more cards. As Stevie Nicks crooned from the record player, Ella hummed along with it. 

“So, is this Stevie Nicks obsession a chronic thing or will you eventually get over it?” he asked, putting down a few hearts. 

She shook her head to herself. “I’m shocked you’d even ask that of me.”

Snorting a laugh, Jess glanced back up at her, catching sight of the mural. “And when were you gonna tell me you like to draw?”

Ella furrowed her brows and looked at him doubtfully. “Right, because you’re so open about your hobbies?”

“I talk about books all the time!”

“No, you sit there all broody  _ reading _ your books. You do not  _ talk _ about your books. There’s a difference.”

He scoffed. “That’s a gross exaggeration. Did you do that mural too?”

She nodded casually, more attention on the game than the conversation. “Yeah, a couple years ago. Lorelai bought me some paint for my birthday.”

“Huh.” Jess’s voice had his normal disinterested lilt, but his gaze was still on the wall above her head. “I like the colors.”

“Or lack thereof.”

“Exactly.”

“And there it is. Your small fraction of refinement,” she mocked, doing her best to shrug off any semblance of a compliment. Then, after a moment: “Rummy!”

Jess heaved a good-natured sigh, tossing his handful of cards down. “What the hell!”

. . .

In the apartment about the diner, Luke sat watching baseball on his small TV. The smell of coffee had permeated the air and traveled up the stairs. He would do his best in the morning to keep the stench back down in the kitchen. It was like airborne death. Almost as though he could feel it giving him a premature heart attack the more he breathed it in. Just as the taped game was entering the sixth inning, and the clock neared midnight, Jess strolled through the door, having grabbed the key from the secret spot above the door to the diner. 

Luke had of course seen the two of them leave the diner together after their shifts. And he had seen them speaking more than he’d seen Jess ever speak to anyone else. But nine hours together was far too long in his book. Immediately, as he watched his nephew walk in and make his way to the fridge, Luke shut off the TV and prepared himself for one more excruciating conversation. They always were with Jess. As Jess sat down at the kitchen table, a tupperware of mac and cheese in front of him, Luke ambled over with his flannel-clad arms crossed over his chest. 

“Were you with Ella?”

“Third-degree already? You’re in rare form tonight,” Jess grumbled, slouched over his food. 

Luke sighed. “Jess, for the love of God, were you with her this whole time?”

“Yes,” Jess answered. “Did you know what a card shark she is?”

“ _ Jess _ .”

“ _ What? _ ”

The wooden kitchen chair creaked as Luke pulled it out and sat down heavily. “Look, I know you guys are friends-”

“I’d say more like acquaintances.”

“You cannot hang out with her like that. You  _ cannot _ date her.”

“Hey! Who said anything about date?!” Jess exclaimed defensively. 

Luke eyed his nephew wearily. “I know what happens when two teenagers become friends-” He raised his hand to stop Jess from protesting and continued: “-and spend hours hanging out together. It leads to a kiss in the rain and Lover’s Lane and the flasks stolen from parents with Sinatra playing over the stereo-”

“What decade do you think this is, Grandpa?” Jess cut in. “I’m not gonna date her but so what if I did? You’re not  _ her  _ guardian.”

“She barely has a guardian at all, Jess. That girl does not need anymore trouble in her life than she’s already got.”

“Other than a mild Stevie Nicks fetish I haven’t noticed any trouble so far,” Jess quipped, smirking smugly. 

Running a tired hand over his face, Luke swallowed down his irritation. Since taking Jess in, he’d definitely had a few lessons in stretching his patience. “Jess, you’ve only been here a few months. I’ve known her since she was a week old. There are things about her life you don’t know. In fact, there an  _ infinite  _ number of things you do not know about her.”

“What the hell do you think I’m gonna do to her? I’ve still heard no reason why I can’t hang out with her, so if you’ve got one, then I’m all ears,” he said dejectedly. 

“It really isn’t my place to say.”

“Okay, great, then I’ll hang out with who I please.”

“Fine,” Luke groaned, shaking his head. “I’ll tell you.”

“Good.”

“Do you know why she works here?”

“Well, I know it’s not because of the boss.”

“Her mom died two years ago and then her dad lost his job over in Hartford,” Luke said in a clipped tone. Finally, Jess shut up, a stony look on his face though he seemed to lack his usual amount of wiseass remarks. 

“She has a little brother in middle school and an older brother in college. Her dad, I ran track with him in high school. He climbed in a bottle. He wouldn’t work. Lorelai asked me to help them out, give them some extra diner food. Ella wouldn’t take anything unless she worked for it. She happens to be really good at her job, so it just stuck. Her dad went back to work after about six months, but it’s still not great for her at home. I’m sure you saw that earlier.”

Luke paused to assess Jess, who sat with his arms crossed, looking down at the oak table. Outwardly, there was no sign of whether he was digesting the bulleted history of Ella’s last few years. Though he knew it was important to tell his nephew, Luke felt immediate regret for putting so much of Ella’s history out for him to know. After her mother died, she’d only missed three days of school. She never spoke about it. The only signs he saw of lasting problems were the times her father came in, ordering what had been her mother’s signature lunch, even though he had a new girlfriend he was heading for marriage with. That, and the things he heard through Lorelai. 

Still, Jess was silent, so Luke continued.

“She’s got enough to deal with, alright?”

Unsurprisingly, Jess remained stoic. He barely looked up, didn’t nod in acknowledgement. But Luke felt he had been heard, so he got up without another word. He left his nephew at the kitchen table in the yellow midnight light of the apartment.

  
  



	5. An Alice Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a catastrophic afternoon, Ella confronts Jess about his evasive behavior. Later, the annual basket sale disrupts a weekend shift at the diner.

At first, she thought nothing of it. The snubs, when he would look away from her just as he caught her eyes, refusal to hold a conversation disguised as being busy. After all, she didn’t need Jess. She got plenty of social interaction at school and at work, but there was something suspicious in the sudden turnaround of their banter. The cold shoulder was getting old. Her patience finally wore thin on a stormy Monday. February had warmed at an unexpected rate, and the rain rather than snow had begun to fall the week before. Ella suspected another wave of snow would move in before the winter was really over, or she hoped it would. A fire of annoyance was brewing in her stomach as she jogged the distance from Stars Hollow High to the diner, having forgotten her umbrella in the morning. She had only her leather jacket, and had opted to shield her messenger bag instead of her hair in order to save her homework. 

With damp hair and her dark eye makeup running a little under her eyes, she stormed into the diner. To add insult to injury, she had slipped on the gravelly slush on the way, and her jeans had torn at the knee. The edges of the ripped denim were tinged red, her skin scraped. She hung her sopping bag and coat from the hanger near the door. They dripped rainwater on the tile floor and she sighed internally. She would definitely have to mop later. Before anyone could say a word, she retreated to the kitchen and tried to ring her hair out. She ran some napkins under her eyes, and they came away dark with eyeshadow and mascara. There was no mirror in the kitchen, but she had a pretty good idea of what she looked like. The words “drowned rat” came to mind, and her rosebud lips were set in a tight, tense line. 

Heaving a sigh, she tied her apron around her hips, nearly slipping again in her black clogs. She ignored the stinging in her knee and came around the counter. Rain always slowed business, and there were only a few people in the diner. Lorelai and Rory sat at the counter, Luke speaking with them, while Jess read  _ Naked Lunch _ on the stool he had stolen and put near the door to the kitchen. He hadn’t looked up or acknowledged her when she brushed past him. 

“Um, Ella?” Lorelai asked when she saw the girl. 

Grabbing a pencil and a pad to shove into her pocket, Ella finally felt as though the rushed adrenaline was fading in her. “Hey, guys, what’s up?”

“Got caught in the rain, huh?” Rory surmised, eyeing her curiously, warily. 

Ella furrowed her brows at their strange looks, and how Luke was averting his gaze from her. “Yep. I forgot my umbrella, I fell down on Main, I probably bombed my chem test, I lost my calc textbook and didn’t find it until I spent twenty minutes going through the entire math wing after class, and  _ Jess _ still has my copy of  _ Jane Eyre _ ,” she enumerated her grievances, caught up in her rant, pointing an angry finger towards Jess on her last note. 

On a normal day, she would have swallowed down her irritation and put on a fake sunshiney demeanor. But with virtually only Rory and Lorelai in the diner, she had ended up spewing out all her frustration. She didn’t mention the fight she’d had with her dad in the morning, though. That could wait for the next movie night in the Gilmore house. 

Jess looked up once, lazily, at the sound of his name, and then went back to his reading. 

“Okay, honey, I’m sorry, but it’s gonna get worse before it gets better,” Lorelai said, trying to placate her. Sometimes, Ella could get wound as tight as Rory, though always for different reasons. 

“What?”

“The shirt situation is not lookin’ so good right now,” Lorelai informed her. Luke had begun puttering with the cash register, checked out from the conversation.

Ella looked down at her shirt and immediately flushed scarlet. She’d worn a white long-sleeve with a black outline of Lou Reed’s face. With the saturation from the rain, the white cotton had become almost entirely see-through and her black bra was completely visible. 

“You have  _ got _ to be kidding,” she said softly to herself, burying her face in her hands. 

Again, Jess looked up at the noise and assessed the situation, sputtering something between a sound of surprise and a chuckle when he saw what had happened. Ella arched an eyebrow at him, then switched from thinking mode to acting mode. She grabbed Jess by his sleeve and began dragging him towards the store room. 

“ _ Jesus! _ What-” he began, but she cut him off as they made it into the back. 

“What the hell is your problem?!” she exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest self-consciously. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dejectedly, avoiding eye contact.

“Really, tough guy? You don’t know?” Ella asked, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Look, I know we’re not best friends. In fact, we barely even count as coworkers! And honestly, I couldn’t give a fuck if you ever talk to me again. But, I want my books and my records back! And the next time you wanna hide a black eye from Luke, I wouldn’t count on me helping you!”

“Eleanor, I-”

“ _ Don’t  _ Eleanor me, Jess,” she scoffed.

Jess cast his eyes down at his black boots, and Ella was surprised to find him looking squirmy. 

“Luke told me, alright?” he said after a long pause, finally facing her. 

“Told you what?” she demanded.   
  


“About your mom and your dad and why you work here,” he blurted out, trying to maintain his hard exterior though embarrassment crawled beneath his skin.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella brought a hand to her necklace and let out another long, frustrated sigh. “Alright. Yes, my mom’s dead and my dad’s not winning any parenting awards. What does that have to do with you morphing into a jackass the last few weeks? More of a jackass than normal?”

“The entire town hates me. And I don’t care. But I figured it would be better for you not to have to deal with-”

“Yeah  _ right _ ,” she mumbled, glancing back at the door to the diner, hoping no one could hear them but knowing everyone probably could. “Luke told you to stay away from me, didn’t he?”

“No, he-”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jess.”

“Alright, fine, yes. But I get it.”

Running a hand through her hair, Ella tried to quiet the emotions swarming around within her. “Well, I’m flattered you’ve decided to give  _ me _ so much choice in the matter.”

“I-”

“Y’know, I’m pretty sick of everyone assuming I’m some scared little girl who needs protecting!” she fumed, speaking with her hands. “Because, guess what, I got dealt a bad hand. And I made it through almost entirely on my own. I’m almost eighteen years old, and  _ I _ get to choose what I do and who I hang out with! Alright?”

Ella shot him an expectant look. Jess crossed his arms and sighed, nodding in acknowledgment. 

“Great! And, just so we’re clear, I’m plenty smart enough to avoid your dumbass antics on my own!” 

Her face was set in determination, posture rigid. Redness warmed her skin, her hazel eyes alight with fire. Jess waited a beat, to see whether or not she had finished. After a moment, it seemed like her speech was over. Heaving a breath, Ella fiddled with her blonde waves once more, trying to calm her nerves, remembering again what a shitty day she’d had. But at least she knew what was up with Jess. She knew she would have to assure Luke of her safety at some point, but she had to calm down first. Ever since her mother had died, he, along with Lorelai, had begun looking out for her. It was appreciated, but coupled with the concern of the rest of the town, she, at times, felt suffocated. Especially considering none of those people had to come home with her and face the daily trash of the Stevens household. They didn’t have to listen to her father fucking his new girlfriend in the middle of the night and walk past the old photographs of her mother the next morning. Not even if they continued dropping off random pity casseroles.

Finally, Jess broke the charged silence. “Do you want me to grab you a shirt from upstairs?”

Swallowing thickly, Ella nodded. She wrapped her arms more tightly around her middle. “Please.”

“When I get back, if you want, I can give you my full  _ Jane Eyre _ review,” he said, his regular smirk returning. 

Ella’s muscles relaxed, and she felt relief flood her system, though her voice still held a pronounced bite. “Well, it took you fucking long enough!”

. . .

Wiping down the main counter, Ella still fumed beneath her surface. Her blood had cooled about Jess. With everything he had on his record already, she could understand him not wanting to piss Luke off. Well, not piss him off more than the moderate amount he did on a daily basis. But then there was Luke and Lorelai. It made sense for them to team up as her surrogate guardians in the wake of her mother’s death considering how completely in love with each other they were. But Ella never had any interest in talking about what happened, and she would be lying if she said she wasn’t insulted to be treated like an aimless toddler. The moment her mother died, everyone started seeing her like the little girl in overalls and blonde pigtails she once was. 

Heart beating nervously against her ribs, Ella glanced suspiciously from side to side. It was past nine, closing time, and Jess was in the back washing up the last of the dishes. Luke was unplugging the equipment behind the counter. Ella cleared her throat anxiously. 

“Um, Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you tell Jess to stay away from me?” she asked pointedly, having stopped her circular movements of the dish towel in her hand. 

Luke froze, facing away from her. She saw his shoulders tense beneath his red flannel. After a beat, he turned back to her and crossed his arms. Leaning against the back counter, he took on an all-knowing stance. However, Ella could not help but think he gave off a less emotionally intelligent vibe than he was going for. 

“I just don’t want him getting you into trouble,” he began warily. 

She raised her eyebrows, mirroring his stance. Jess’s grey thermal shirt hung loosely on her frame, the sleeves rolled up in bunches to her elbows. Her hair, tied back loosely in a low ponytail, had finally dried. And she’d salvaged her eye makeup in the bathroom with the help of paper towels and sink water. But still, her body was tired from the trials of the day. Monday was usually upsetting, but only very rarely so disastrous. 

“Did it ever occur to you that I can keep myself out of trouble?” she asked, subtle hostility dripping from her tone.

“Ella-”

“No, really, am I so helpless that I can’t avoid gnome-stealing?” she asked seriously, maintaining constant eye contact. 

Luke mulled it over in her head, then nodded his head, conceding. “Okay, I’m sorry. I was just worried.”

She sighed. In spite of her mood, a small, kind smile crossed Ella’s lips. “Really, Luke, you don’t have to worry. I’m not even friends with that jackass. I’m just educating him in quality literature and vinyl collecting. He has no taste.”

Matching her smile, Luke nodded again and went back to work. “Okay, just don’t let him bother you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” 

. . .

Tossing a dull pencil behind her furiously, Ella growled slightly. She retrieved a second pencil from the bun in her hair, underlining another phrase. The streets of Stars Hollow were slick from a cool morning drizzle, leftover fall leaves, shades of gold and orange, stuck to the asphalt. Biting her lip in concentration, she only let up when she began to taste coppery blood. She was glad for the silence in the diner. The annotations alone were enough to make her brain feel like it was going to implode. Even the mid-morning regulars were occupied, as the entire town stood on the grassy square facing the gazebo. The annual basket sale was underway, the meals for sale ranging from Lorelai’s inedible ruffage to Sookie’s impeccable lunch. 

“Y’know you’re gonna end up takin’ someone’s eye out,” Jess drawled, hunched over his own book on a stool near the register. 

“Thanks for the warning,” she deadpanned back.

Sighing, Jess saved his place in his book and tossed it on the back counter. “Why don’t you take a break? You’ve been at that for like three hours.”

“No can do,” she said, still not taking her eyes from the text in her hands. 

Jess scoffed. “What are you up to anyway?”

Ella groaned at his persistence, finally shutting her book with a  _ snap! _ “It’s for my spring paper. I’m comparing the modernist depiction of Catholicism in  _ Portrait of the Artist _ and  _ Death Comes for the Archbishop _ .”

“I thought you loved James Joyce? A very misguided preference, by the way.”

“I do,” she snapped, her tone wary. “But he’s just one half of the paper. I’m reading Cather right now and I fucking hate it.”

“Sorry to hear that. It’s tragic,” Jess said flatly.

“Bite me.”

Just as they were both getting back into the groove of their reading, Lane burst through the door with a frantic look. She bumped into a few tables on her way to the counter, the metal legs screeching against the tile floor. Ella eyed her in slight amusement and concern. 

“Where’s the fire, Lane?” she asked. 

“Okay, Ella, I need you to take a deep breath before I tell you this,” Lane began in a sugary voice, refusing to make eye contact.

Ella narrowed her gaze. “Why?”

Jess looked up curiously. 

“I really think you should-”

“Lane,” Ella said, dropping her book and pencil, trying to keep her tone even though her heart was in the throat. “Just spit it out. I can take it.”

“Miss Patty made you a basket and they’re about it to bid on it,” Lane said in a rush, taking a step back in preparation for the outburst she knew would follow. She was correct. 

“ _ What? _ ” Ella exclaimed, immediately scurrying out from behind the counter and busting through the diner doors. Before leaving completely, she called out in the direction of the stock room, where Luke was doing inventory: “I’m taking my fifteen!”

His interest piqued, Jess hopped down from his stool and followed. Throwing on his jacket and stuffing his hands in his pockets, a smirk formed on his lips at Ella’s irritation. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her middle as she jogged to the square, stopping at the edge of the large crowd where she found Miss Patty. A damp chill blew in the spring air. 

“Patty, did you make me a basket?” Ella asked the woman in the drapey velvet outfit. 

Blowing a stream of blue smoke from her dark red lips, Patty nodded and laughed. “Of course, dear. I think it’s about time for the summer of your youth.”

Ella shut her eyes for a moment, collecting her anxious words. “I appreciate the concern but I don’t need any help-”

“And, next up, we’ve got this beautiful little basket for everyone’s favorite waitress, Ella Stevens!” Taylor announced from his podium in the gazebo, readying his gavel for the impending bids.

“Trust me. You’ll thank me later, doll,” Miss Patty winked, a knowing smile spread over her made-up face. 

Sighing heavily, Ella turned to face the gazebo and felt a mix of panic and frustration churning in her stomach. She looked around for Lane, a desperate search for a friendly face, but Lane had already found the cousin who had bought her basket. Ella knew all about the plot to share the basket with Henry, the boy Lane had met at the Chilton party. She would have been happier for her friend if their method of dating didn’t involve such an insulting town tradition. Instead of Lane, she found only Jess standing beside her, failing to hide his laughter. She rolled her eyes at him, face flushing scarlet when Taylor announced the first bid.

“We’ll start at five dollars!” 

“ _ Fuck  _ me,” she growled under her breath. 

“ _ Language _ , Eleanor,” Jess mocked from her right side. But then, he raised an arm and shouted: “Ten dollars!”

“What the hell, Mariano?” she hissed, trying to grab his arm and lower it. 

Taylor acknowledged Jess’s bid and waited for another taker to show a hand for fifteen dollars. After a beat of silence, Ella felt the heat on her face growing. She felt as though the entire town had eyes on her. Mercifully, there was little bidding. After a few more random bids from a couple boys she only vaguely recognized from school, Taylor struck his gavel on the podium, and a meager amount of applause sounded. Ella tried to catch Jess’s attention to chew him out as he walked up to retrieve the basket, but he ignored her attempts at engagement.

“And  _ sold _ for thirty dollars to the nice young hoodlum in the back!”

Strolling back to Ella, Jess could already see the frustrated crease between her brows. She had her arms crossed over her chest defiantly, and he nodded his head for her to accompany him as he began the short walk back to the diner. 

“Jess, what-”

“Shall we?” he asked, finally casting her an expectant glance. 

“ _ What _ are you talking about?” she asked, stepping in front of him and putting a hand on his chest. 

“Let’s go eat. You should probably grab your jacket first, though,” he reasoned, the smirk never leaving his face. 

Slowly, the tension began to leave her figure and her expression cooled off. Her eyes widened in surprise, a bit of confusion, and she laughed nervously. “I’m working. So are you.”

“Really? Because I think I just saw Lorelai run in there and turned the sign closed.”

Over her shoulder, Ella saw Lorelai pushing Luke from the front door, pleading with him to bid on her basket. And when the sign was in view again, she saw it indeed read  _ Closed _ . Scoffing in disbelief, Ella tucked a wild piece of hair behind her ear. 

“I really think it’s time to solve the mystery of whatever Miss Patty thought your suitor would like for lunch. I’m  _ starving _ . Aren’t you?” Jess gestured to the basket and his smirk turned to a smile. 

Shaking her head self consciously, Ella turned a glance down to her black converse for a moment before looking back at Jess. “Alright, but we need to be back for the dinner shift.”

“Good,” Jess said quickly, brushing past her to the diner. “C’mon, we don’t have all day.”

. . .

Afternoon light glimmered off the lake as Ella and Jess walked down the bridge. Birds chirped from somewhere off in the surrounding woods, and Ella took in a deep breath of the clean nature. Out on the water, the pine permeated the air pleasantly. Though the breeze was cool, the sun shone down and warmed her face as she glanced up to the clouds passing across the pristine blue sky. It struck Ella how long it had been since she had really enjoyed the weather. The thought almost made her embarrassed, such a simple perk of life she had been ignoring. So often it felt as though she viewed her reality through window panes, only the room changing around her. She was reminded of Emily Dickinson, watching the world change around her and experiencing it all through only her imagination and her poetry. There was such a bittersweet beauty to the thought, and it painfully struck the small part of Ella’s heart reserved only for private wishes. 

“Earth to Eleanor,” Jess said, waving a hand in front of her face. “Jeez, what’s on your mind?”

She smiled and shook her head at herself, following Jess’s lead as he sat down on the edge of the bridge, placing the basket in between the two of them. “Emily Dickinson.”

Jess rolled his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you how  _ wildly _ unpredictable you are?”

“All the time.”

Chuckling, Jess poised his hands over the basket lid, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Ready, Nancy Drew?”

“That I am. Which Hardy Boy are you? Just so we’re clear on this metaphor,” she said with mock gravity. 

“I think I’m a Frank,” Jess answered. 

Ella nodded. “Yeah. I agree.”

Slowly, dramatically, Jess pulled back the lid of the basket, a fake sunflower garnishing the top. Frankly, though, it had been one of the least tacky baskets of the entire bunch. Inside, they found pastries. Tons and tons of pastries. Just from the sweet and yeasty smell, so familiar, Ella knew they were made by Fran at Weston’s bakery. They were assorted danishes. Jess tentatively pushed them aside to see if there was anything else, but the danishes were it. As the realization came over both of them, Ella erupted in laughter. 

“Okay, seriously, what the hell?” Jess asked through his own breathy chuckles. He watched as Ella threw her head back, her blonde hair glinting in the sunlight, gripping her stomach as she laughed. 

Catching her breath, Ella shook her head knowingly. “I have zero explanation for this. She means well.”

Jess snorted. “Clearly.”

They both took a danish each, the crinkling of wax paper as they began eating the only sound besides the gentle lapping of the water against the bridge and the chirping birds. Ella opted for an apple, while Jess took a cherry. 

“So, why does Miss Patty think you need a basket anyway?” Jess broke the ice again after a moment of comfortable silence, both their gazes trained on the greenish-clear water before them. Across the expanse of the lake, there were only pine trees, the spring grass was just beginning to come back in patches below them. 

Ella rolled her eyes and grimaced. “She thinks I need someone to  _ share my youthful body with while it lasts _ .”

“Wow."

“I know. Patty’s always meddling, but I’m not big on the dating thing.”

Something indecipherable passed across Jess’s face for a moment at her words, but Ella barely noticed it. She swallowed down the last of her danish.

“And you  _ hate _ the basket thing?” he asked through crumbs.

“It’s just so fucking sexist. Parading the women of Stars Hollow around, literally giving them away to the highest bidder. I know it’s tradition, but it’s such bullshit,” she said, speaking with her hands as her passion mounted. 

Jess nodded, and Ella was surprised to see how earnest he looked. “Yeah, it is very...Henry VIII. Isn’t it?”

“Totally. I’ve tried to bring it up at town meetings. But old habits die hard, apparently.”

“That they do.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“Excuse me?”

She gestured to the basket between them. “Why’d you buy my basket?”

Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. Heat of the moment. You seemed pretty pissed. Thought I’d save you from those other assholes who were bidding.”

“I don’t need any saving,” she remarked pointedly, though she then shot him a benevolent look. “But thank you.”

“Duly noted and you’re welcome. If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t my intention to support an antiquated, patriarchal mating ritual,” he said, almost sheepishly.

She hummed in acknowledgement, watching two birds chase each other through the trees across the lake. They were two cardinals, bright red against the muted greenish brown landscape. 

“I just didn’t want you to have to spend a picnic with a baseball player. They’re mindless,” he joked, tilting his head at her. “Does that make you feel any better?”

“Marginally.” She smiled, taking another deep breath of the fresh air. She tugged her black corduroy jacket a little tighter around herself, clearing her throat and stealing a glance at Jess. “Y’know, you could be like this all the time if you tried.”

“Like what?”

“Not a dick,” she said bluntly, raising her eyebrows. 

Jess laughed evasively. “Well, I’m glad you see me in such a positive light.”

“Look, I’m not trying to…” she trailed off, sensing his discomfort. “One day, you’re beating the hell out of Peter Smith and torturing Luke. And then, you’re buying my basket to rescue me from a stale afternoon with the Stars Hollow High catcher. You’re getting to be quite an inconsistent jackass. It’s just...curiouser and curiouser.”

Scoffing, he tossed her a knowing look, the backhanded insult rolling off him like water. He knew it wasn’t exactly meant as a slight, but more as a question. “Well, I’ve got to keep you on your toes. Y’know, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

A wide grin crossed her face, her hazel eyes lighting up. “I never pegged you as an  _ Alice _ man.”

“Well, I think we’ve established I’m full of surprises.”

  
  



	6. King's a Hack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a night at home with a stress-induced migraine, Ella is surprised when Jess shows up. The next morning, Ella goes on one of her occasional pie-baking kicks.

A throbbing pulse behind her eyes, Ella trudged through the balmy morning to the diner. The history textbook was weighing down her shoulders. April and the air was finally warming, though the morning still had a frosty quality about it. The sunlight was bright but she could still see her breath in white clouds before her. Stepping into the cozy air of the diner, the aroma of coffee hit her right away and made her stomach do a flip. She could work there a hundred years and never get used to it. Coupled with the smell, the place was the loudest she had ever heard it. Drywall was falling in random chunks from the ceiling, men in hardhats strolling back and forth out of a plastic sheet. She’d forgotten about the demolition project Luke had started two days ago after taking a sledgehammer to a wall in the apartment. For a moment, she regretted walking in, but ignored it and took a seat at the counter. Immediately, she dropped her bag to the ground and laid her head on her arms crossed before her. 

“Hey, Ella, what can I get for ya?” she heard Luke ask through the commotion. 

She lifted her head again, blowing hair away from her face. “Green tea, please.”

Luke’s face fell a little bit. “Oh.”

“What’s wrong, Uncle dearest?” Jess asked, coming up to Luke’s side with a hardhat on his head and an umbrella in hand. 

“Nothing,” Ella grumbled, shrugging off her coat. 

“Oooo, that’s not a happy face,” Jess teased, observing the pout on her lips and the stormy look in her eyes. Jess gave her the umbrella and she took it reluctantly, then understood as the ceiling fell above her in dusty pieces.

Luke sighed at Jess’s tone, a wiseass as he always was, and put the tea on. “She ordered green tea.”

Jess scoffed. “ _ And? _ ”

“Ella only orders green tea when she has a migraine,” Luke explained. 

Ella rolled her eyes. “I do not.”

“Really? How ya feelin’ right now?” Luke asked haughtily, a knowing smile on his face. 

Groaning, Ella brought her head back down on her arm dramatically. “I stand corrected.” Her voice was muffled by the sleeves of her sweater. 

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re just so insanely unpredictable, honey,” Jess quipped. 

As she sipped her tea, the construction and life swirling around her, Ella felt dread for the day ahead building up. It wasn’t often she got migraines, but when she did, she tried her best to power through them. School was bearable when she pretended to be looking down at her notes while actually sleeping. The muscles in the back of her neck were stiff and her head ached with the beat of her heart, but the tea was helping slightly. Lorelai and Rory blew in with their usual brand of chattiness. On a normal morning, it would have lifted her spirits. Instead, she was largely silent as Lorelai relayed the story of how she sliced her hand while trying to clean her gutters. Ella perked up as the tale ended. 

“Why’d you try to clean them yourself?” she asked, brows furrowed. She had been cleaning the Gilmore gutters since she had started high school. Her father had taught her when she was a child, as she liked the thrill of the height. 

Lorelai shot her a guilty glance. “Well, you were working last night and they were overflowing when it rained last week and I just thought...yeah. It was a lost cause to begin with.”

“Well, I can come by tonight before my shift-”

“Ah!” Luke stopped her, his hand up. “Don’t even think about it. Just stay home tonight, you don’t have to come in.”

“What?” she asked, exasperated. “My family’s at a reunion, I have pretty much no homework. I’m fine! I can work!”

“Wow. How convincing,” Jess deadpanned from his spot on the stool by the kitchen door, observing the exchange. 

“What’s wrong?” Rory asked, searching Ella for something amiss.

“Green tea. Need I say more?” Luke said.

Lorelai looked over at Ella sympathetically, reaching to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Your head again?”

“It’s not that bad! What about your gutters?” Ella reasoned. Without work to fill her time, she imagined she might spend the night in her lonely house clutching her forehead. Not an ideal evening. Even with a headache, work at Luke’s was better than a second in her house, filled with the ghost of her mother. 

“Don’t worry. Jess’ll do it,” Luke said off-handedly, tossing a glance over his shoulder to his nephew. 

Jess’s eyes widened and he got up from his seat. “Jess will do  _ what _ ?”

“Clean the gutters. Right, Lorelai?” Luke raised his eyebrows expectantly at Lorelai, who faltered under his look and then nodded after a hesitant moment.

“Sure.  _ Jess _ will clean  _ our _ gutters.” Lorelai swallowed dryly.

“Instead of scraping the plates you’ll be scraping the gutters,” Luke said to Jess, making a fresh batch of coffee as he spoke. “Height is the only difference. You’ll get paid either way. Just go this afternoon before the dinner shift.”

“Yeah, we’d love for you to do your  _ Breakfast Club  _ routine from our roof,” Lorelai said. Of all the people in Stars Hollow, she may have been the person who hated Jess the most. Rory had spoken volumes to Ella about the disappearing act Jess had pulled the first time he was invited over for dinner at the Gilmore house. “C’mon, Bender, give us a fist bump!”

Jess scoffed and rolled his eyes. He looked to Ella pointedly as she finished off her tea. “You just had to go and get sick, didn’t you?”

“I’m not sick, jackass!” she exclaimed, the sound of her own voice echoing painfully in her ears. She looked around at the group, each person watching her doubtfully. “And  _ all _ of this is unnecessary. Because I’m  _ fine! _ Like I  _ said! _ ”

Jess shook his head and took a peek down at his watch. “Don’t wear yourself out. We gotta get to school. You comin’ or takin’ a sick day?”

“Shut up,” she hissed. Gathering up her stuff, Ella saw Jess slip on his own jacket and carry nothing but a novel in his back pocket as school supplies. She led the way with irritated footsteps, dodging the powdered ceiling which fell all around. 

Taking off his hard hat and light on his feet as he tried to catch up with Ella, Jess shot Luke one last smirk. “She’s a joy, isn’t she?”

. . .

With the lights dimmed, Ella watched as Carrie White’s powers grew with every passing minute. The house was quiet, almost peaceful, as the night fell. Clouds obscured the view of the full moon, but a few stars could still be made out against the indigo canvas of the sky. She laid with a thin afghan splayed over her, a cool washcloth against her forehead. Three horror movies in, and she was starting to feel a bit of cabin fever already. It occurred to her how little time she spent in the living room anymore. Apart from her bedroom at night, the house was practically foreign. She knew her way around the cabinets at the diner than she did in her own kitchen. Besides, Fiona had rearranged everything when she moved in. The little blue house was no longer the one she grew up in. Just as she was dozing off, a soft knock sounded at the door. Sighing through her nose, she threw the blanket and the washcloth aside, making her way over to the front. 

Furrowing her brows, Ella saw Jess standing with his usual smirk and a box of food in his arms. “Um...hey?”

“Delivery.”

A suspicious smile crossed her face. “Excuse me?”

“Well, since tonight you’re all alone and sick-”

“Not sick,” she interjected. “I don’t need rescuing.” Jess barely paused, his smile growing.

“Luke figured you might not have any food in the house, so he sent over a care package,” Jess explained, gesturing down to the box, which contained at least two large paper bags with the  _ Luke’s _ logo across the front. 

Ella scoffed. “But I’m fine.”

“‘I’m fine.’ My god, you’re like a broken record today,” Jess remarked. “Where should I put this?”

“I-”

“Kitchen?” he asked, then brushed past her through the doorway, immediately in the small living room. He noted there was only one light on in the whole space, illuminating everything in a low golden glow. A blue haze emanated from the TV screen, paused on a frame of ‘70s Sissy Spacek. He stopped short, looking back to Ella for guidance, where she still stood slightly dazed in the doorway. 

Clearing her throat and blinking once in surprise, she shut the large white door behind her and pointed past the living room, through the open space in the wall overlooking the kitchen. “Yeah, kitchen’s fine. Right through there.”

She followed him in, flipping on the light switch and wincing at the sudden flash before her eyes. Trying not to let the twinge in her head show, she steadied herself on the door frame before walking on. Ella watched as he began unpacking the box’s content. There were bags full of fries, burgers, salads, sandwiches. Along with the greasy amenities, she saw a huge container of green tea bags. A fond smirk passed across her lips, then fell again when she remembered Jess had randomly shown up at her house. 

“Jesus, how many people did he think I needed to feed?”

“Well, maybe that cat of yours can put some of this away.” Jess shrugged in disinterest, not meeting her eyes as he spoke. “Luke didn’t know how long your family was gone, so he wanted you taken care of.”

Ella shook her head, though good-naturedly. “I’m only alone for a couple days. He means well but does he ever tire of his overprotection?”

“Not likely.”

She chuckled a little, though her heart wasn’t in it. The pain was back in her head after standing up, and it made her dizzy. Without thinking, she took a seat in one of the rickety kitchen chairs. The kitchen was dated, with a scheme of peach and white that became almost blinding in the daylight. The small, circular table rocked slightly, on uneven legs. It had been there since before Ella was born, though, so she hardly even noticed it. 

Jess raised an eyebrow when she sat down abruptly. “I’d ask if you’re okay, but I doubt I’d get a truthful response.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Mariano?” she asked in mock offense. 

“Yeah. And not a very good one.”

She uttered a weak laugh. “You underestimate me.” Then, after a beat: “Why didn’t Caesar or someone bring this over?”

“I volunteered.”

“Why?”

“I just wanted to get outta the construction zone,” Jess explained, a ranting tone in his voice. “There’s nothing but banging and yelling. Place gives  _ me _ a headache.”

She scrunched her nose up at the word. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you  _ wanted  _ to come over here and get a glimpse of this pretty face.”

Jess snorted, though she thought she saw a slight flicker of something across his expression. “Right. I think I get enough at work, thank you very much.”

“Don’t feel bad. Lots of people get intimidated by my level of perfection. Can only handle me in small increments,” she joked tiredly, her chin propped up on one hand. 

Finally, he had unpacked everything in a box and stood over it, facing her. After a moment, she realized they’d been looking but not talking, and she brought her eyes down to the food on the table. 

Clearing her throat, she ventured another glance at him, her courage returning. “So, are you just gonna stand there the rest of the night, or…?”

Again, Jess shrugged. “Well, you didn’t give me my tip.”

Ella snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mariano. Service is not your strong suit on your best day.”

“Well, if you refuse to give me money, I’ll settle on a fry or two,” he offered, his face amused with the negotiations. 

She sighed, a smile of disbelief on her lips. For a moment she thought, and decided she had been wishing for some company all night. Why not Jess? “Be my guest,” she said, motioning to the chair across from her. “You’re not the  _ worst _ person who could have walked in, I suppose.”

A satisfied grin flashed on Jess’s face and he shrugged off his jean jacket, hanging it on the back of the chair. “What a model hostess.”

“Shut up. Overstay one minute of your welcome and you’re outta here,” she warned, opening up the fries and reaching for a few. She watched as Jess made the salt and pepper dip. On slow days or while closing up the diner, she’d seen him make the condiment a few times. It was pretty fucking good. 

Jess scoffed. “In your condition? I doubt you could take me.”

Raising her eyebrows, Ella shot him a look. “Try me.”

“Alright, I’m duly warned,” he said, surrendering. 

As she got settled with her food, Jess let his eyes roam over the room. He’d never seen anywhere in her house other than her bedroom at the end of the hall. The peach kitchen felt homey and lived-in. By the kitchen sink, there was a witch hanging on a wall hook. White lace curtains hung over the windows. The fridge was covered with photos and magnets, some of them faded with age. Then, his eyes arrived back on Ella. She reached behind her, opening a cabinet and retrieving silverware and plates. Jess muttered a thanks as she passed him some. He shook his head when she offered him a drink. When she got back to her seat, she began arranging her food neatly on the plate. Jess bit back a laugh, almost expecting the behavior. Her blonde hair was down, slightly disheveled though she had tucked it behind her ears. She had on the same  _ Beetlejuice _ t-shirt and blue jeans she’d worn at school. It was odd to see her slightly placated, less stressed than she was at the diner. When she looked back up at him, he caught a glance at the redness in her hazel eyes. Had he woken her up? A pang of guilt hit him, but he felt silly so he brushed it off. 

“So, how was cleaning the Gilmore gutters?” she asked, munching on a fry. 

“Nice alliteration.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Go on.”

He shrugged. “It was alright. Lorelai gave me some Chinese food. We made small talk. Sort of.”

  
“Awww, look at that. Jess is acquiring people skills,” she mocked. 

“Shut up,” Jess snapped, face contorted in irritation. 

Ella laughed. She spotted a pickle on the side of his plate and snagged it from him. Though he narrowed his eyes at her, he said nothing in protest. “Why’d you talk to Lorelai anyway? I thought you guys had a long-standing feud?”

Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. She’s Luke’s friend and she helps you out and...Rory asked me to put in a little effort.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she smiled suspiciously. “Just...listening to directives from others. Not exactly your style, is it?”

“Alright,” he said with finality, straightening up in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “Out with it.”

Ella scoffed. “Well, are you into Rory or something? Seems like you’re pretty open to her opinions.”

He shook his head, his expression unreadable. “ _ Please _ . Like I’d fall for the resident princess of Stars Hollow.”

“I don’t know. You’ve got similar literary tastes, or lack thereof. At least she has the decency to recognize Hemingway’s inferiority,” she explained, not meeting his eyes and taking a bite of burger after she finished talking. 

Jess let out a small sigh and his smirk came to his lips again. “Y’know, Ernest only has lovely things to say about you.”

She giggled. “I doubt that very much.”

A slight tension filled the air before Ella spoke again.

“Look, all I’m saying is, you hate her boyfriend, you’ve got that Holden Caulfield thing going for you. Wouldn’t be the worst coupling in the world.”

“Such high praise. What’s it to you, anyway?” he asked, getting a little defensive. She couldn’t tell whether it was because the idea appealed to him or repulsed him. 

She shook her head, her voice light. “Sorry, I don’t mean-” She stopped to sigh, then began again: “Okay, you can’t speak a word of this to anyone or I’ll personally castrate you.”

Jess’s eyes widened at the mock threat, chuckling. “Okay, well I gotta hear this.”

“I hate Dean.”

He gasped, bringing a hand to his heart in teasing surprise. “I’m  _ shocked _ . Not good enough for our perfect Rory?”

“He’s just...he at least needs to give her some fucking space sometimes,” she sighed. At that moment, her headache shot up her neck and behind her eyes again in a flash of pain. Despite her best try, she couldn’t hide her grimace. 

Jess regarded her momentarily. “How’s your head?”

“I’ll survive,” she said, her face guarded.

“You get them a lot?” he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

Clearing her throat, she swallowed another mouthful of burger and shook her head gently. “Not really. Just every couple months since...uh since my mom and everything. Doctor says it’s a normal stress response or something.”

Humming in acknowledgement, Jess’s eyes flicked to the TV through the opening in the wall to the living room. “ _ Carrie _ , huh?”

A look of slight relief washed over her, and the small smile returned to her lips. “Yeah. I go on Stephen King binges when I’m not feeling like myself.”

Jess’s brows furrowed and he scoffed. “Why?”

“Because they remind me just how much worse my life could be. Especially if the supernatural got involved,” she explained. 

He chuckled a little and raised a doubtful eyebrow. “King’s a hack, y’know. Totally bloated prose.”

“His books are entertaining, what can I say? And I’ve learned so much about the state of Maine reading them.”

“I am  _ so _ disappointed in you, Eleanor Stevens,” he groaned amiably. 

She only shrugged. “Hey, you have your vices, I have mine.” Then, she glanced back over her shoulder and suddenly began gathering up her food. “C’mon, we’re just getting to the good part. The prom massacre awaits for our viewing pleasure.”

Jess smiled, watching her go as he picked up his own food, then joining her on the tattered green couch. 

. . .

As he descended the stairs, the smells of nutmeg and apple hit Jess in the face. The aroma was not unwelcome, his empty stomach growling, but he thought it odd. Luke didn’t bake very often, and almost never at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning. Jess would’ve slept in later, but the hunger and his sleep schedule for school had forced him from his twin bed. They didn’t open for another hour, late on Saturdays with less people up so early for work. Jess ran a hand through his messy hair and found Luke taking down the chairs as he passed through the curtain at the bottom of the stairs and entered the diner. 

“Are you makin’ somethin’?” he asked his uncle groggily, immediately stealing a donut from under one of the glass domes on the main counter. 

Luke shook his head and sighed. “Not me. It’s the pie psycho back there.”

“I told you not to call me that!” Jess heard Ella call from the kitchen. 

Grunting in annoyance, Luke rolled his eyes. “This is a sickness, Ella! It’s an unhealthy obsession!”

Blowing a piece of hair from her eyes, Ella emerged from the kitchen into the dim morning light of the diner. “It’s a  _ hobby _ !”

“What the hell’s going on?” Jess chimed in, a hint of a laugh in his voice. He regarded Ella. Her hair was pulled back again. Streaks of flour painted her pale face and she wiped her hands on the full apron she wore over her simple dress. He snorted and sat down at a stool across from where she stood, her forearms leaned on the counter. “Looks like you’re feelin’ better.”

“Much,” she nodded, a smile gracing her face. A sudden bell sounded and she rushed back into the kitchen. When she came out again a moment later, she held a pie, steaming in her potholder-clad hands. “ _ And _ I have pie.”

Pursing his lips, Jess nodded in simple recognition. “I can see that.”

“You showed up at six o’clock,  _ unannounced _ , to make pies  _ without being asked _ ,” Luke exclaimed in exasperation, gesturing in irritation with the rag in his hand. “Just like last summer!”

“Last summer?” Jess asked. 

“Every week, she shows up, early hours of the morning, with random pie supplies-”

“And we sold every slice! You get up at four in the morning anyway!” Ella piped up defensively. “We’ve got this apple and then in-” she paused to look at the clock, “ten minutes we’ll have a pumpkin and a pecan!”

Luke groaned, throwing his head back dramatically before returning to his work. “You’re incorrigible!”

“Nice. Five cent word,” she quipped.

Shaking his head, Jess laughed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Last night you’re like a zombie and now you’re the crazy pie lady.”

“I’m multi-faceted,” she said distractedly, crouched behind the counter as she straightened various folded napkins and silverware. 

“That’s one word for it,” Jess grumbled, and had to duck to avoid the crumpled napkin Ella launched at him in retaliation. 

Ella popped up again from behind the counter, blowing out a satisfied breath. “I just figured I should do something nice for you, Luke. As a thank you for the care package last night.”

Jess’s eyes widened marginally and his back straightened. 

Brows furrowing, Luke tilted his head at Ella. “What care package?”

“The one Jess-”

“Hey, Luke, I think I heard the raccoons getting in the trash again this morning,” Jess said hastily. 

Luke groaned. Lumbering into the back without another glance at either of the two teenagers, he muttered a final “Dammit!” before disappearing from view. 

Slowly, Ella turned back to Jess with a knowing smirk on her lips. Crossing her arms, she leaned on the counter across from him again and raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“What?” Jess snapped defensively. 

“Well, aren’t you a fine, upstanding young member of the Stars Hollow community.”

“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“You wanted me taken care of because my family was gone and I had a headache,” she prodded, watching as a flush reddened Jess’s cheeks and he squirmed nervously under her eyes. 

“Aren’t you gonna burn your pies standing out here?” he asked, deflecting. 

She shook her head nonchalantly. “No, they’ve still got a while. You’re blushing, Mariano.”

“Shut up.”

“Oh, this is fun. This is very fun,” she teased, watching him grow more uncomfortable by the second. 

“Oh yeah?” Jess asked testily, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I’d say.” Then, after a moment, she stood up again and sighed, grabbing the pie knife from under the counter. “Thank you, Jess. That was very nice of you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” he said, still feigning confusion. 

  
She scoffed, then began slicing the pie, still warm but no longer hot to the level of tongue-burning. “Whatever, tough guy. You want some pie?”

“For breakfast?” he asked, chuckling in a little in relief as she dropped the previous subject. Butterflies of embarrassment still fluttered around in his stomach. 

“It’s Saturday. There are no rules. Besides, my pies are legendary.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Jess told her, eyes lingering on Ella when she turned away, a smile blossoming on her face. 

  
  



	7. Ginsberg, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To avoid Mother’s Day, Ella takes a spontaneous journey to the park where David Lee Roth was arrested.

A sleepy Thursday at the diner and Ella was almost finished with her sketch of the streetlamp across the way. Upon doing the preliminary line work, she found it dull, so she had added a UFO circling above it to spice up the drawing. The clinking of mugs filled her ears, but the diner was only moderately populated. Luke was busy filling out some spreadsheet, stealing glances over at the staircase every few minutes. Jess was due downstairs at any moment. Near the front window, Rory sat with piles of notes and textbooks out in front of her. Having overhead Luke and Lorelai, Ella knew Rory had been tasked with tutoring Jess, who was in danger of repeating the eleventh grade. Ella did not envy Rory. She’d only run into Jess a handful of times in the hallways of school, and though they had no classes together, she’d certainly heard tales of his insubordination and mischief. Just as she had finished the shading on the face of the alien through the window of the spaceship, Jess bounded down the stairs. His face brightened when he saw Ella at the counter, immediately taking up the stool across from her. 

“Okay, honey, prepare to be amazed,” he began, shuffling his deck of cards before she had even looked up at him. 

She scoffed at the name, shutting her battered sketchbook in fear of him catching a glimpse of her work. “Dazzle me.”

It only took him one attempt to guess her card and she smiled proudly. 

“It’s Houdini himself,” she appraised.

“And…” he trailed off, grabbing a shiny red apple and a dish towel from a ways down the counter. Showing her the empty sides of the towel, he feigned the apple appearing out of nowhere from beneath it.

Her smile grew, taking the apple as he held it out to her. “Also good. But I’m not the teacher you should be giving the fruit to now, am I?”

Jess sighed heavily as she munched on the apple. “I swore off institutional education long ago.”

She rolled her eyes. “Calm down, Nietzche. You’ll only have to get over yourself for a couple hours so you can stay in this small town utopia.” As she spoke, she gestured to the town around them. 

“Well, it’s off to the salt mines, I guess,” he said, head hanging low in resignation.

Ella chuckled at his theatrics and gave his shoulder a gentle push in Rory’s direction. “Yes, I pity you. Now, go.”

. . .

About sixty pages in to  _ White Oleander _ , though she had read it two times before, Ella was enjoying the decadent prose when the phone broke the silence of her bedroom. A smell of lavender, the plant for luck, calmed her as the candles on one of her crate nightstands burned slowly. The flickering flames were the only ones which lit the room. Clearing her throat, she sat up against her pillows and took the old white phone, sitting on the floor in the corner, off the receiver. She expected Lane, though she didn’t call nearly ever. However, Lane’s nearly-never calls were pretty much the only ones she ever received on her landline. The separate number was one she had installed herself, after her mother died, a cheap phone bought at Radioshack with her first paycheck from Luke’s. She knew she would need a form of communication Fiona didn’t have to pay for, to lorde over her during their screaming matches. 

“Hello?” she answered. 

“Eleanor?”

She furrowed her brows. “ _ Jess? _ ”

“The one and only,” he joked through the line, though she could tell his heart wasn’t in it. She couldn’t hear the smirk in his voice like she usually could. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked quickly, her heart in her throat. Since her mother’s death, any sign of trouble made her stomach sink, no matter how small the issue turned out to be. 

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Jess. What’s wrong?” she repeated, swallowing dryly. 

He heaved a tired sigh. “I’m going back to New York. Tonight.”

She was rendered silent for a moment, the information registering. “Oh. What...What the hell? Did something happen? Is it your mom? Do you-”

“Honey, just shut up for a second, okay?” he cut in, and she didn’t even have time to be annoyed about the pet name. “Rory and I...I screwed up. Tonight after we…” Jess stopped to sigh again.

“You don’t have to-”

“I crashed her car. Rory broke her wrist.”

“ _ Fuck _ .”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus, are  _ you _ okay?” she asked urgently, running an anxious hand through her hair. 

Jess uttered a noise between a laugh and a scoff. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m indestructible. I thought you knew that by now.”

Ella cleared her throat again and struggled to find words. “Mariano, I-”

“Look, I gotta get going in a second. But, I uh...I got your phone number from Luke’s address book and if it’s cool I’ll give you a call when I get there?”

Taken aback, Ella couldn’t help but let out a doubtful laugh. “Um...yeah, sure. Of course.”

“Good,” he said shortly. 

There was a prolonged silence, full of words Ella couldn’t grasp, feelings she couldn’t articulate. 

“So,” she said, her free hand fiddling with the hem of her quilt nervously. “Don’t forget to call me, okay? No matter how late it is. I’ll worry you got mugged or something.”

“Yeah,” he said, almost fondly. “I know, Stevens. So...I’ll see you.”

“Yep. Bye, Jess.”

“Bye.”

The line went dead, and she spent one moment still clutching the phone to her ear, listening to the monotonous final tone. Once she hung up, she tried to keep reading, but found herself distracted. Why the hell did he want to call her? The entire conversation felt unreal the moment it was over, and she knew she should have asked more questions. Though she was aware the news and rumors about the car accident would spread through town like wildfire, everyone glad to be rid of the local Antichrist, otherwise known as Jess Mariano. But there were so many other pieces she felt were missing, even if she couldn’t really name what they were. She thought of how dull her shifts would now seem without Jess to argue with about books and music, to laugh with while she closed, to reprimand and call a jackass. Maybe the peace she’d once enjoyed would return, but she already knew how different, how lacking, it would feel. 

. . .

Clutching her books to her chest, Ella checked her watch every few seconds waiting for Lane to arrive. Again, Lane had been grounded for some random transgression. But they’d made plans to meet before school and go for pancakes. Ella was too nervous to actually step foot inside the diner alone. She knew Luke would give her those small, sympathetic glances. Especially after Mother’s Day last year. Lane had agreed to be her emotional backup, joining her for breakfast and shielding her from all the dead Mom reminders. Breathing out a sigh, Ella checked her watch again and knew they wouldn’t have time for Luke’s pancakes before school anyway. She was glad at least the morning air was warm, and she could wear her flowy black sundress, covered in tiny pink flowers. She thought wearing her favorite outfit, complete with her black boots and fishnets, would raise her spirits. Of course, the get-up was yet another reason she had to steer clear of the Kim residence for fear of incurring Mrs. Kim’s wrath. 

Suddenly, Lane appeared from the front door of the antique shop and sprinted over. “Ella! I am so sorry, I had to-”

“Lane?” Ella said, looking up from her gaze on her shoes with a resigned tone. 

Immediately, Lane lost all her joy and urgency. Her face fell and saw the redness in Ella’s eyes, her sleepless features. “What?”

“I can’t do this today. Look, can you cover for me? Tell everyone I’m sick, or something? Get my homework?” she ventured, looking around suspiciously.

Lane narrowed her eyes and put a hand on Ella’s arm. “Yeah...but where are you going?”

A wicked smirk covered Ella’s tired face. “I don’t know. Somewhere I’ve never been before.”

. . .

Even the air and the light were different in New York, though she figured it was probably the multiple kinds of pollution permeating the atmosphere. The local bus had a smell like pine which was not altogether unwelcome, and she was able to finish annotations for an article in earth science class. Squealing tires screeched in her ears as the bus stopped outside Washington Square Park where Jess told her he often hung out on the less than rare occasion he cut class. Her stomach churned anxiously as she ran her hands through her messy hair, loose and wavy. Of all the places she’d never been, New York seemed the most feasible, not quite so far away, a place where she had contacts. She needed to get away from Stars Hollow, away from the memories, away from the life she hadn’t asked for, where she carried baggage which didn’t even belong to her. 

Descending the stairs of the bus, Ella clutched her messenger bag, heavy with the books she’d originally packed for school, tightly at her side. As soon as her feet hit the concrete, a smile crossed her face. She was really in New York. And she’d gone all on her own, from the station to the local bus, and she didn’t have to deal with any of the Mother’s Day flower sales or the sad looks whenever she entered a room. For a moment, she watched the streets on either side, the bustling people, as the bus rolled away and she had officially arrived. It took almost no time at all to see Jess’s dark hair sticking up from a bench across the road. She didn’t need to see the other side of him to know he was knee deep in a book. Rushing over the crosswalk, Ella felt excitement rising in her stomach, though fears of being run over also thumped against her chest. She plopped down next to him on the park bench and caught a glance at the cover of his book and scoffed. 

“Ginsberg, again?” she asked dejectedly. “And you think I’m predictable.”

Jess looked calm as he recognized her voice and smirked at her appearance. “Always. What are you doin’ here, honey?”

Groaning, she threw her head back dramatically. “Again with the ‘honey.’”

“Hey, I’ve only been gone a month. Not everything changes,” he shrugged, saving his place in his book and stuffing it in the back pocket of his worn jeans. 

“We talk on the phone almost every day. The ‘honey’ thing was dead, or so I thought.” She shook her head, speaking with her hands. 

“It’s not as gratifying when I don’t get to see you almost ready to murder me,” he explained, smug as ever. 

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a little sexist, don’t you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“Calling girls ‘honey,’ Jess. Keep up. It’s the twenty-first century,” she said, exasperated. 

Jess shook his head and ran a hand over his mouth, a nervous reflex. “I don’t call  _ girls _ ‘honey,’ I call  _ you _ ‘honey.’”

She snorted a laugh, missing the redness which colored the tips of his ears. “If that’s supposed to make me feel special, it doesn’t.”

“It was supposed to make you feel unlucky, actually.”

“Well, then you’ve succeeded, jackass,” she said, though she had a fond look. 

Jess grinned and cleared his throat, crossing his arms over his chest curiously. “So, what the hell are you doing here, Stevens?”

Ella shrugged, cavalier as she stared across the park and the May breeze blew the hair back from her freckled face. “Working on my spontaneity. This was a preliminary exercise.”

Narrowing his eyes, he nodded slowly. Ella tried to quiet the memories flashing before her vision, screaming through her mind. She hoped Jess wouldn’t notice. Her heart was yearning for adventure, something positive. Anything positive. Jess looked down momentarily, mulling something over. Then, he eyed her again with a smirk on his lips. 

“You wanna go somewhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“Well, that narrows it down a bit.”

. . .

“Y’know, it’s just like you to hang out in Washington Square Park in the middle of a school day,” she scoffed, then taking a bite of one of the hot dogs they’d bought off a street vendor. It was salty, but good. The mid-day lull had hit the city, and the streets were only slightly overcrowded as they weaved around. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, chuckling.

“I don’t know. Not quite as mainstream as central park, it’s got that David Lee Roth thing. Very Jess.”

“I don’t appreciate being typecast,” he joked, watching her from the corner of his eye. 

“Hey,” she said, shrugging. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Whatever. I’m not the Stevie Nicks groupie here.”

“If you think that’s an insult, you’re wrong.”

. . .

After a trip to the record store, they strolled along with shopping bags in hand. Jess had paid in crumpled ones, but still scored an Iggy Pop record to add to his meager collection. Still, Ella insisted he wait to buy any CDs until she was gone again, so as not to offend her delicate vinyl sensibilities. Watching out of the corner of his eye, Jess noticed the holes in the knees of Ella’s fishnets and the shine of her frizzy blonde hair in the afternoon light. The moment was so surreal, his worlds colliding. She looked oblivious to his gaze, though, drinking the city in. He felt tempted to laugh at the excitement she radiated at the novelty. Even on the subway, with its stale smell and flickering lights, she’d managed to maintain a level of amazement Jess found baffling. After a few moments, Jess chose to break the serene silence between them. They walked so close he could feel their arms brushing against each other. 

“Explain to me why you bought all that relentless melancholia?” he asked, having kept quiet since he’d noticed her placing her choices on the register in the shop, punk music blaring over the stereo system. She’d bought three records: Kurt Cobain, Elliot Smith, and The Velvet Underground.

“There is a time and a place for it,” she argued. “We can’t all sustain a diet of constant screamo and metal, y’know.”

Jess shook his head, and chuckled but said nothing. In his natural environment, he was much the same, but his gait was marked with fatigue. His footsteps were heavier. She wondered what his home life was like in such a big city, where he could wander around on a school day without anyone asking after him. A wave of sadness rolled over her, and she again thought of mother’s day. They passed a cart selling flowers, and the smell wafted off the blooms in sickly sweet clouds. It made her stomach twist into a knot, her mind clouded with thoughts for the both of them. When she returned home, everything would be the same. No one would know where she’d been. And the whole excursion would be nothing but a memory, a painting she could touch but could never live again. She sighed lightly, staring ahead as they walked. Jess cast her a sidelong glance, nudging her with his elbow.

“So, where to next?”

Pursing her lips, she thought for a moment. “A place you like to look at.”

. . .

Litter peppered the grassy hill overlooking the Hudson river. The engines of the cars which crossed the bridge over the river sputtered with exhaust, adding to the smoggy haze of the air. Clouds had hung in the sky all day, and the air was muggy, but Ella felt light with content. She could hear the slight current of the water under the traffic, and it was oddly tranquil despite the overall grimy atmosphere of the city. People milled about on the sidewalk behind them, their designer shoes clicking away on the gray stone. The sounds swarmed around her and created a comforting sea of white noise. Jess took a seat on the hill without saying a word, and Ella followed suit. 

“Good choice, Mariano.” 

“Thank you,” he smiled, watching as her eyes lit up at the sight of the water. “In Stars Hollow, there’s the lake. So, I figured, here, there’s the river.”

Ella nodded, beginning to dig through her bag. “You come here a lot?”

“Sometimes,” he said, shrugging a little. 

“Oh, he’s so demure,” she teased, then found her sketchbook amongst the hodge podge of items in her bag. Jess watched with a raised eyebrow as she brought out a pencil along with the book. However, she didn’t begin drawing. The weathered moleskin was closed on the ground between them, and Jess didn’t think before he took it and ran his fingers over the cover. 

“Can I look?” he asked expectantly.

She turned to him with a suspicious look, eyes narrowed. Then, after a moment, she blew out a tired sigh and nodded, pursing her lips. “Yeah. But if you laugh I’ll tell the principal you were the one who took all the dry erasers.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” he warned jokingly. 

“Well, the stakes are high in New York, aren’t they?” she said offhandedly, her eyes trained on the river. A huge VW Van rolled over the bridge, and it reminded her of pictures from the Haight-Ashbury circa 1967 in the old edition of  _ TIME _ Luke had in the stock room. 

Scoffing, Jess opened the sketchbook up to the first page, which was slightly yellowed with age. He wondered how long she had been carrying the book around with her. The first drawing was of a vase of flowers, but upon further inspection he found the centers of the blooms had mouths full of sharp vampire’s teeth. He skimmed through the others, similar nature scenes with various ghoulish elements. A few pages away from the remaining blank ones, he stopped short. The shading around the figure was dark, but in the center was the face of a beautiful woman, with the light shading of a skull underneath. He ran a figure over the eyes of the skull and brought his hand back again, hoping to avoid smudging. 

“This one is…” he began, then trailed off. She glanced over at him, then felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. She’d drawn it only a few days earlier. 

“Not my best,” she muttered, hoping to deflect his attention from it. 

He laughed in disbelief. “Are you kidding? This is amazing.”

“You don’t have to lie.”

“Stevens, seriously. You’re a fucking artist,” he told her earnestly, staring down at the drawing.

“Well, thank you,” she said, quieting the anxious swirling her stomach. Her heart fluttered. It was rare she showed anyone her drawings, even Lane or Rory. But again, the surreal quality of the moment made her feel as though there would be lesser consequences. Maybe Jess wouldn’t remember her drawing later, as though it were a dream, like she imagined the day would feel the moment she left the city. 

He cleared his throat, studying her unreadable expression. “Is it a self portrait? Looks a little like you.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips and she didn’t look at him while she spoke. “No, actually, it’s my mom. Everyone always says how much we look alike.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” she sighed, a sarcastic smile crossing her face. “ _ Oh _ .”

“Mother’s Day, huh?” he asked knowingly. 

Furrowing her brows, Ella finally faced him. “You keep track of the Hallmark holidays, Mariano?”

Jess snorted. “I don’t subscribe to them, but I am aware of them.”

“I think they should be eradicated.”

“Agreed.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she nodded and looked back at the river. It was murky and green, no doubt polluted beyond recognition, but it still wasn’t half bad to look at. Jess noticed the way her fingers, with clipped black polish on the nails, drummed an antsy tune on her leg. He held the sketchbook back out to her and she gave him a grateful half-smile before cracking it open and beginning to draw. 

“You okay?” he asked, breaking through the lengthy, but comfortable, silence. 

Her smile grew a little more, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “Always, Jess. It’s just one day. And I don’t particularly care about it. It’s the people back home.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if you hadn’t noticed, the town of Stars Hollow isn’t known for minding its own business,” she said. 

“Yeah, I kinda picked up on that,” he replied, watching her pencil slide across the page. 

Occasionally, she stopped drawing and straightened up a little, appraising her work. Using the pad of her pinky, she shaded the clouds above the bridge, transforming the sketch past just an outline. Jess leaned back on the palms of his hands, letting the time pass as late afternoon turned into evening. He found his mouth left with a bittersweet taste at the thought of her hours away from him by the end of the night. 

. . .

Back at the Port Authority bus terminal, the air was chalky. The local bus they’d taken to get back to the station had a decidedly more pleasant feel than the one Ella was about to board. But the ride wasn’t too long, and she still had plenty of school work she could finish on the way. They stood facing each other at the head of the bus, with five minutes until she absolutely had to board. Jess had his hands stuffed in his pockets, his shirt adorned with obscenities and the name of some obscure punk band. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, leaning back against the bus for one final moment of escape before climbing back out of the rabbit hole. 

“So, how was the tour?” Jess asked.

Humming in thought, Ella glanced up at the splotchy ceiling for a moment before returning her eyes to him. “I’ll give you a seven.”

“Hey, if it’s passing, I’ll take it,” he said, shrugging.

She laughed. “Not a bad maxim. And I guess it's back to Washington Square Park with you?”

“Guess so. It’s a prime spot to brood.”

“I’m glad you’re finally owning your narrative.”

Jess smirked. “Well, if I’m owning mine, you gotta own yours. Show those pictures to someone important.”

Ella shook her head, then stopped for a moment and reached her free hand into her shoulder bag. Placing the shopping bag filled with her new records between her teeth, she flipped to the page where she’d drawn the bridge and ripped it out as neatly as she could along the perforation. Jess watched in confusion as she retrieved a pencil from her bag, she signed her name and dated the drawing in the lower right corner. When she’d tucked everything back into their rightful spots, she held the drawing out to Jess.

“We’ll call this a baby step.”

Letting out a small laugh, Jess took the drawing and studied the messy signature, a grin coming over his face. He brought the book from his back pocket and stuck the drawing in between the pages for safekeeping. “Thanks. I’ll make millions off this someday.”

She snickered and threw a look down at her watch. Two minutes left before departure. “Don’t patronize me, Mariano.”

“Don’t doubt yourself, Stevens,” he shot back immediately, with more sincerity than she was prepared for. 

Shaking her head, she ignored the gravity of the moment. 

“I think that’s all motivational speaking I can handle. I gotta get back. You sure you don’t wanna return to Hell with me?” she asked, only half-joking. 

“I think the moment I step foot beyond town lines I’ll be struck down by the powers that be,” he said, a chuckle in his voice, though it didn’t reach his eyes. He ran a hand over his mouth.

She sighed through her nose and nodded. “Alright, fine. But in my considered opinion, you shouldn’t let those old gossips run you out of town. Sometimes when the world bites you, you gotta bite back.”

Jess raised his eyebrows. “And I’m the motivational speaker here?”

She rolled her eyes and started towards the bus. “You’re impossible.”

“Same to you,” he called as she boarded, and she shot him one final teasing glare before she turned the corner into the aisle. 

Jess watched her blonde head move down row after row through the small windows, and when she finally stopped two seats from the back, he rushed down and shouted to her, hoping she could hear him through the thick window pane. 

“Stevens!” 

Furrowing her brows, she found Jess standing outside her window, uttering muffled words she couldn’t decipher. She groaned impatiently and raised the glass to hear him. 

“Come again?” she asked.

“I said, I’ll call you later tonight. Don’t forget to pick it up. I’ll worry you got kidnapped or something.”

A smug smile crossed her lips. “Ah, I’m rubbing off on you.”

“I avoided it as long as I could,” he shrugged, smiling back.

“I won’t forget,” she assured him. “Bye, Jess.”

“Bye, Eleanor.”

And as soon as she shut the window once again, he was out of sight, meandering back to the station’s exit. A moment later, the bus driver released the break, a shrill squeak sounding. Swallowing dryly, Ella settled into her seat and prepared for the long drive back to reality. 

  
  



	8. Bowie Didn't!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the night of Sookie’s wedding, Ella visits the diner and encounters a surprise.

Though the sign on the door read  _ Closed _ , Ella gave only one knock and rushed in. She could see Luke closing up, wiping down the main counter. Upon looking up to see her, Luke groaned and hung his head. Ella only smiled, a slightly wicked look. The lights were turned down low and it was shadowy, adding to her fatigue. Sookie’s wedding, out under the early summer sun, had been a fun, all-day affair, and it had taken the wind out of her. But she only had a night left before she shipped off to New Britain for the rest of June, and she had to get one dose of Luke’s food in before the three-week excursion. 

“Ella, how many times-”

“I’ll help you clean up whatever mess I make, alright? I know the procedure,” she insisted, her grin growing. 

He sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you, Luke. I am eternally grateful,” she said with mock severity. “I just had to get another look at the place before I depart forever.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You’re only gonna be gone for a few weeks.”

She scoffed. “To a youth like me, that’s practically a lifetime.”

“What can I get ya?” he snapped, over her theatrics, but in his usual gruff, lovable way. 

“Fries, please. And a water?” she asked. Luke nodded and disappeared into the back. 

Smiling still, she shrugged off her jean jacket, left in only the army green dress she’d worn to the wedding. The air was clear and full of promise. She would miss the diner, of course, but it would be a welcome escape from her family. Not that her father was entirely behind the idea, but she’d wheedled enough to get him to agree to not send the police looking for her while she was gone. It was odd, considering he usually gave less than one percent of a shit on a daily basis about where she was or what she was up to. Suddenly, feet thumped down the stairs to the apartment and Jess emerged from behind the checkered curtain. He was rubbing his big brown eyes with the heel of his hand. When he looked up and saw her sitting there, he staggered back in slight surprise. 

“Hi,” he said, nodding a little. 

She raised her eyebrows at seeing him back in his old haunt. “Hi.”

“So,” Jess began with a sigh, raising his hands and gesturing to himself standing in the diner. 

Ella nodded, pursing her lips. “Yep. Guess you didn’t think to mention this on the phone two nights ago?”

He chuckled. “Of course I didn’t. Gotta keep things exciting.”

A crooked smirk on his face, Jess ambled over and leaned his forearms on the counter in front of her. Before she could ask him any questions, he shifted toward her and produced a shiny silver quarter from behind her ear. She furrowed her brows at the action but smiled. Holding out the coin to her, he smiled back. He heard Luke puttering around in the kitchen behind him. The deep fryer sizzled lowly. She took the quarter and rolled the cool metal between her fingers before shoving it in the pocket of her jacket.

“How was the wedding?” he asked, his chin propped up on his hand. 

She shrugged. “It was a wedding.”

“Hence the name.”

Luke came back around with a basket of fries and a glass of water, eyeing Jess suspiciously, and said nothing as he set them down in front of Ella. She shot him a pointed look. “Thanks for keeping me in the know, boss.”

Sighing, Luke rolled his eyes. “Seems like you figured it out on your own. You’re gonna be gone all month anyway.”

“Gone all month?” Jess echoed.

She nodded. “The New Britain aunt. She just asked me yesterday if I could help her out for a while. She's getting married next week, and they already have a couple kids. I’m babysitting while they’re on their honeymoon.”

“Thrilling,” Jess quipped.

“Should be.”

“Guess I’ll just have to call you here for a while then. You’ll be waiting at the phone, desperate just to hear my voice,” she said in a breathy, dramatic voice, reminiscent of 1940s screen queens.

“Keep dreaming.”

“I always am.”

“Well, it’s not too far. Maybe I’ll return the favor. I’ll show up and you can take me on a tour of all the New Britain hotspots,” he said dryly, though there was a joking tone. 

She scoffed. “No such places exist, Mariano.”

“What’s he talkin’ about?” Luke asked, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her. 

Pausing for a moment, Ella shrugged, feigning nonchalance as she stared down at her fries. “I went and saw Jess in the city a couple weeks ago.”

“ _ What? _ ” he asked, throwing an accusatory glare to a smirking Jess. “When?”   
  


“Mother’s day,” she said shortly, finally meeting Luke’s eyes again. 

A knowing expression passed across Luke’s face. “Oh.”

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed in response, aware he wouldn’t say another word about it. Lost in her mind for a moment, she cast her gaze over to the door of the stock room, memories rolling over her like waves.

. . .

**_one year and three weeks earlier_ **

_ It was summer when she died, almost a full year before. The warming weather brought with it unpleasant, familiar stirrings in the pit of her stomach. She could hear the keys of her mother’s piano, smell her perfume, feel her mother’s hands brushing her hair when she was a child. Order after order, she brought pancakes to happy families. There were mothers with bouquets of flowers in their arms milling around out on the street. And she was happy for them. But it was so hard to maintain the facade when she had nauseating clouds of grief washing her in gloomy rain. She hadn’t even known it was Mother’s Day until she left the house, her father and brother not having yet awoken. But the looks people were giving her told her something was wrong. The chalkboard outside the bookstore announcing the holiday sale solved the mystery for her.  _

_ Blowing strands of hair away from her rosy face, Ella felt the throbbing of her sore feet and wanted nothing more than to be listening to her Stevie Nicks tunes on a low volume in her bedroom. She wanted to be reading Dickinson and wallowing in the misery she had no idea would befall her. There seemed to be nothing on the Earth which would cheer her up until the bell over the door jingled and she saw the faces of Lorelai and Rory.  _

_ “If it isn’t my favorite mother-daughter detective team!” Ella smiled as they sat down at the counter in front of her.  _

_ Luke came over to greet them as well, a cheery expression on his stubbly face. “What can I get ya?” _

_ “Pancakes with chocolate chips that spell out ‘Mother of the Year,’” Lorelai said immediately, batting her eyelashes.  _

_ Sighing, Luke looked up from his writing. “Is that a serious request?” _

_ “Am I one to joke about pancakes?” Lorelai countered.  _

_ Grunting out an affirmative monosyllabic response, Luke went back into the kitchen. Ella shook her head. Her boss would do anything for that woman.  _

_ “We’re gonna have to wolf those pancakes down if we’re gonna get through all the movies today,” Rory reminded Lorelai, a sweet smile on her lips.  _

_ “Oooo, what kind of marathon is it?” Ella asked. _

_ “Audrey Hepburn,” Lorelai answered through a grin. “ _ Funny Face _ ,  _ Sabrina _ , the whole nine. Maybe we’ll add some Katherine, too. All the Hepburns.” _

_ Feeling her heart drop into her stomach, Ella hid the crestfallen look which threatened to cross her face. “That sounds great. I um...I gotta go get some extra chocolate chips from the back if Luke’s gonna fit all those words on the pancakes.” _

_ Rory furrowed her brows in confusion, but Lorelai realized their mistake almost as soon as the words left her lips. However, Ella was in the stock room before either of them could say anything to correct themselves.  _

_ Ten minutes passed before Luke noticed his waitress was nowhere to be seen. Admittedly, he had to search his mind to remember if she’d told him he was taking a break or not. When he decided there was no such memory, he returned to the counter where Rory and Lorelai were finishing up their candied pancakes.  _

_ “Did you guys see where Ella went?” he asked.  _

_ The two women looked between themselves with hesitant looks. Lorelai sighed and shook her head, a conspiratory whisper to her voice. “She’s back in the stock room, but I would just give her a minute.” _

_ “Why? What’s goin’ on?” Luke was immediately concerned, and Lorelai’s face softened at his worry. _

_ Rory chimed in, looking guilty. “We told her we’re doing a Hepburns marathon for Mother’s Day. And her mom  _ also _ loved Katherine Hepburn and it just slipped out and it’s Mother’s Day and-” _

_ “She’s probably just gonna need a few minutes,” Lorelai cut in, finishing for her daughter.  _

_ Luke’s face dropped and he blew out a long breath. “Oh. I...I should go talk to her.” _

_ “Should you?” Lorelai asked doubtfully, but Luke was already walking away. “Luke?” _

_ Back in the stock room, Luke found Ella on the floor near a rack of canned goods. The room smelled of tomatoes and dirt, but it was homey in an odd way. She rested her head on her crossed arms, elbows on her knees. Luke hadn’t seen her so small since she was a toddler, sitting there crumpled up into herself. Her shoulders were shaking slightly, though her cries were silent. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Luke almost returned to the diner but Ella’s muffled voice stopped him before he could leave.  _

_ “I know you’re there, Luke,” she said, though she didn’t raise her head to look at him. “I’m sorry, I’ll be back out in a second.” _

_ He sighed guiltily, then shuffled on his booted feet a moment before taking a seat next to her. Though she could feel his presence at her side, she still didn’t look up. There were dark smudges around her eyes, she knew, and tears steadily streaming down her cheeks. Even at the funeral, she didn’t cry. No one had seen her cry since she was a small child. It was only nights alone in her room when she finally let her heart open up and bleed. In a million lifetimes she never would have imagined a simple mention of Katherine Hepburn would break her down in public, or that Luke would be the one to see it. But in the last year, she had learned how grief would come and go like a flash flood. The thought of the loneliness, the pure isolation she’d brought upon herself while coping with the loss, sent another shuddering sob up her spine. She swallowed it back and sniffled, her face still buried in her jeans. Suddenly, she felt Luke’s arm around her shoulder, and she flinched at the touch. Her muscles were tense. _

_ “I’m sorry, Ella,” he said solemnly.  _

_ Before she could stop herself, she blurted out a tearful whisper: “Everyone else gets to have a mom.” _

_ Luke nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her as she brought her head to his shoulder and cried into the flannel of his shirt. “I know, I know.” _

_ “I don’t have a mom anymore. I’ll never have a mom again,” she murmured through her tears.  _

_ “Yes, you do. She’s still with you. It’s gonna be okay,” he spoke softly, feeling his heart break for her. He knew exactly what it was like to lose a mother at a young age.  _

_ And there they sat for the next half hour, until Ella’s breathing finally slowed to a near-normal pace and her hands had calmed their shaking. Luke let her go early, and promised her Mother’s Day off for the rest of eternity, or however long she might work there.  _

. . .

Her high heels fell rhythmically on the sidewalk as she and Jess left the diner and strolled through the balmy night. There was a warm breeze, and somewhere far off an owl hooted, a loon called. After she had washed up the dishes from the fries and the water, Jess had suggested they go out and do something since she’d be missing in action for three whole weeks. The flowers were blooming all around town, and the gazebo was adorned with hydrangeas of pink, blue, purple. 

“Hey, you gotta see this,” she said, grabbing him by the sleeve and marching the both of them up the steps. 

“Jeez, relax,” he grumbled at her insistence. 

She only grinned, her eyes travelling up when they reached the gazebo’s center. They sat down next to each other on the small wooden bench. A fragrant floral sheet cloaked them. Jess followed her gaze to the sky, and immediately understood. There was a hole in the gazebo ceiling, small but enough. There was a beautiful view of the stars, through a cloudy lattice of flowers. 

“Huh,” he chirped, nodding slightly.

“Wow, don’t act so impressed,” she scoffed, annoyed at his ambivalence. 

He smirked at her, looking over at her profile in the moonlight. “No, really, it’s cool. Something you should paint.”

“Maybe,” Ella agreed, finally meeting his eyes with a tiny smile. 

“How’d this happen, anyway?” he asked, gesturing up to the hole.

She shrugged, scrunching up her nose. “Something about Kirk and a batting machine a few nights ago. I just tune most of it out at this point.”

“A wise choice.”

“I think so. Anyway, it'll definitely be fixed in the next few days. Figured you should see it before it was gone.”

“Well, I’m so honored you thought of me,” he teased. 

Ella rolled her eyes and flushed, staring ahead at the square glowing silently around them. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mariano.” She paused and spoke again, losing her wistful air. “So, come on, don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”

“What?” He furrowed his brows. 

“Well, what are you doing here? And are you visiting or are you... _ here? _ ” she asked hesitantly, avoiding his eyes. 

“I’m  _ here _ . I came back. I just...wanted to.”

“Why?”

Jess shrugged, running a hand over his mouth. “World bites you, you bite back, right?”

A full smile crossed her lips, and she nudged him with a joking elbow. “That’s right. Took my advice, huh?”

“Just this once. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he said. “Besides, it wasn’t like my mom was suddenly gonna want me back there.”

She hummed and nodded, appraising him. His arms were crossed over the chest of his Clash t-shirt, his hair mussed and his eyes tired. Again, she thought of Jess wandering out in the city alone in the middle of school hours. A pit of guilt settled in her stomach at the thought of leaving the next day, just as he had returned. But she thought better of it. He didn’t need her, and she instantly felt more than a little presumptuous. Without thinking, she chewed at the nails of her right hand. 

“You need to quit that, honey,” he scolded with good nature in his voice. 

Ella rolled her eyes and scoffed, casting him no more than a momentary glance. “Yeah, I’ll quit biting when you quit smoking.”

“Touché.”

“I’m just nervous.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” he quipped.

She snickered and shook her head. “Shut up. My dad doesn’t want me to go, and there’s probably gonna be hell to pay. But I have to take my escapes where I can get them.”

“Don’t I know it,” he agreed. Her makeup was smudged around her eyes, her lipstick faded. There was a stoic look across her features, guarding her thoughts. Jess found himself frustrated at her unreadable expression. 

“Hey, just for the record?” she began, breaking the silence.

“Hm?”

“I think I might hate your mom,” she admitted, hoping not to overstep her boundaries.

Jess laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. You two  _ do _ share the inclination toward Stevie Nicks.”

She scoffed. “The  _ one _ commonality. She doesn’t think you’ll go to college, right?”

“More like I’ll never amount to anything, but close enough.”

“That’s bullshit, Jess,” she said with earnest. 

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he snapped defensively. 

Before she could stop herself, she shifted to face him and raised her eyebrows doubtfully. “The  _ messenger _ , Jess? Like you don’t walk around acting like someone you’re not.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Jess exclaimed, brows furrowed.

“Just…” she sighed, trailing off. Then, she doubled down and took a big breath before beginning again. “This whole Holden Caulfield thing, acting like you’re too cool to want anything!”

“Like you know what I want,” he countered. “And college isn’t the end-all be-all of existence!”

“I didn’t say that! Who gives a fuck if you go to college? Bowie didn’t!” she agreed, voice still raised. 

“Exactly!”

“But, that’s not the point! Jess, what  _ do _ you want?!” she asked. “You go through like five books a day and you almost failed eleventh grade! I mean, Jesus, you could do anything you wanted if you tried!”

“Like it’s so simple,” he grumbled. 

“I didn’t say it was simple,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re just too fucking smart for your own good, Mariano. You can’t waste it.”

He shook his head, biting his lip.

Ella sighed, running a hand through her curled hair. “Fine, don’t listen to me.” Again, she bit at her thumb nail, gazing over the town. Luke was finally finished closing up, and she saw him shut off the lights.

“I’m listening,” he muttered, his voice not without frustration.

“Whatever you say, jackass.”

Before he could respond, Ella stood up and smoothed her hands over her skirt. Her hair fell down her back in golden curls, and the silver chain around her neck glinted. Jess could hear the gentle buzz of insects beneath the thick blanket of night. Upstairs in the apartment, there was a Hemingway novel awaiting him. But he had an inkling he would have a harder time concentrating on it than normal. He thought she was going to leave without uttering another word, but instead she turned and stood back against the rail of the gazebo. She leaned down and unclasped the strappy black shoes she wore, gathering them up by the heels in one hand.

“You’ll get an infection walking around without shoes,” he warned lightly, hoping to drop the subject of his ambiguous future. 

She smirked, and Jess felt himself relax. “Maybe in New York. Not so much in Stars Hollow.”

“Oh, was Manhattan not up to your small town standards?”

Her smile grew into something more genuine and she crossed her arms against the summer breeze. The night was quickly cooling, and she had only her jan jacket to shield her. “No, actually, it exceeded them. It was so...dynamic. Just like you described. But there was no five-dollar street corner sex!”

Jess laughed, though his heart fluttered inside his chest at the look in her eyes. The one of glittering wonder she’d had while they watched the Hudson. “Yeah, well, can’t win ‘em all.”

“Next time?” she teased expectantly.

“Next time,” Jess assured her, nodding. 

“Well, I gotta get home,” she said, glancing behind her in the direction of her street. “I have to finish packing.”

“Right,” he sighed, glancing down at his boots, then back up. “Guess I’ll have to keep that place in business until July, huh?”

“I suppose,” she said, descending the stairs of the gazebo and calling back over her shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I’ll try my best,” he shot back. “But no promises.”

She rolled her eyes and threw him a glance. “I would expect nothing less of you, Mariano.”

And with one final wave and a shouted goodnight, she turned away and continued on the short walk back to her little blue house. Jess smiled after her, watching her glide barefoot over the grass of town square and down the main street until she took a left and disappeared. And he felt a tug at his heart at her absence, but shook his head to himself before trudging back over to Luke’s.

. . .

The mid-morning bloomed warm and sunny, a break from the showers which had recently hung over Stars Hollow, and much of the north East. Pebbles crunched beneath the tires of Ella’s big blue Station Wagon, loaded with her duffel and her suitcase, various books in a grocery bag on the passenger seat. After the morning she’d had, she was biting her nails down to the quick. If she hadn’t admonished Jess the night before, she might have even smoked a cigarette or two. She had smoked for only a short period, the few weeks following her mother’s death. And every now and then when she incurred her father’s wrath. Watching her load up her car had made her father’s ears steam, and he’d broken one of the kitchen chairs. Being hungover certainly hadn’t helped him keep his temper under control. 

As she rolled past Luke’s Diner, the radio blasted a sharp Liz Phair tune. Ella sang along at the top of her lungs, but quieted as she slowed down and let her gaze wander to the diner. For a moment, she debated stopping in for a final cup of tea, but she had to blink twice to make sure what she saw was accurate. Jess, with his black hair spiked up and dressed in his familiar camo shirt, had his hands in a girl’s back pockets. They sucked face as they leaned against the diner, right on the sidewalk. Ella scrunched up her nose at sight and scoffed as she turned her eyes back to the road. Apparently it didn’t take Jess very long. Had he even been back for twenty-four hours yet? She ignored the way her palms began to sweat. As she sped away from Stars Hollow, she turned the speakers up until she felt the music’s vibrations in her chest. 

  
  



	9. EAT ME

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After returning from her summer babysitting job, Ella has a rough night. With friends busy and out of town, she eventually ends up on the doorstep of the diner.

With a toddler asleep on her chest and a five-year-old dozing in a makeshift fort on the floor below her, Ella finally got a moment of peace.  _ The Iron Giant _ hummed at a low volume on the TV, a naptime movie to celebrate her last day babysitting. She loved her aunt’s house, a hippie-dippie pad adorned with tapestries, iscense, and other random items. Ella herself wasn’t into the holistic lifestyle, but she appreciated how much joy her aunt derived from it. The children, two little girls with red hair and big brown eyes, were gentle and silly. Alongside her new husband, Ella’s aunt Julie filled the family household with joy and games. It made Ella nostalgic for a period of her childhood she almost couldn’t remember. Sprawled across the floral print couch, Ella almost fell asleep herself but decided not to screw up her schedule when she was going to have to go back to early morning shifts at Luke’s very soon. Instead, she stretched her arm over, careful not to wake Annie and grabbed the house phone. 

After two rings, Luke’s grumbly voice came through the line: “Luke’s Diner.”

“Hey, boss, is Jess there?” Ella spoke in a hushed tone, eyes on the baby as she tucked the afghan which covered the two of them tighter. 

He sighed. “With his petri dish of a girlfriend. Hold on one second.”

Ella smirked and waited, listening to the early afternoon commotion of the diner. She’d only called a few times since she’d been gone, and almost every time Luke had to pull Jess away from the mysterious new girl. But Jess always came to the phone, and she made a careful effort to avoid the topic of his girlfriend. Mostly, they discussed the merits of the Chuck Palanuik novel Jess had been reading. It was one of Ella’s favorites. 

“Jess Mariano, may I ask who’s calling?” he began.

Ella rolled her eyes at his theatrics. “You’re hilarious.”

“It’s been said,” he replied, the usual amount of cocky. “Why are you whispering?”

“The kids are sleeping. The baby is literally lying on top of me.”

“And when I’m asleep in the middle of the day, suddenly I’m a world-class slacker,” he said.

“Well, the last time I remembered, you’re not two years old.”

Jess scoffed, disinterested. “Semantics.”

“Whatever gets you through the night,” she retorted. 

“How’s it been otherwise? Annie still crawling into the bed and kicking you in her sleep?” Jess asked, having caught her in a middle of a sleep-deprived haze the last time they spoke.

She laughed fondly. “Only a little. There was also one projectile vomiting incident, but, hey, at least I got to watch an  _ Exorcist _ reenactment in real time.”

“What a glamorous summer gig you scored.”

“It’s true.”

“But you’ll be back tomorrow, right?”

“Bright and early. You’re gonna have to fill me in on everything I missed,” she said, noticing how Erin had begun to snore from her place wrapped up in various throw blankets on the floor. 

Jess hummed. “Well, let’s see...I think Taylor might have shifted the stand outside the market about an inch. It was on the front page of the  _ Gazette _ for a week straight.”

“Riveting.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Oh! I finally finished  _ The Lovely Bones _ . You’ve  _ got _ to borrow it when I get b-”

“Hey, sorry, honey,” he interjected, and she heard him mutter some irritated words to someone she couldn’t see. Jury was out on whether it was Luke or some other unlucky Stars Hollow civilian. After a pause, his rushed voice came over the line again: “Look, my new...I gotta go. But tomorrow I’m gonna need a full review.”

“Only if you finish the Palahnuik by the time I clock in,” she wagered.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, and she could practically hear the smirk on his lips.

. . .

Ready to close up and anxious for what awaited her at home, Ella sketched in the notebook her aunt Julie had given her after arriving home from the honeymoon. Since returning to work, spending sweltering days in the AC of the diner, Ella tried to ignore the strange feeling which pulsed through her. Every time Jess’s new girlfriend Shane sauntered in, she had to avert her eyes as they made out, Jess’s hands roaming her body. And not only because of the grotesque amount of PDA they engaged in. But as soon as the uneasy feeling rose in her throat, she began to sketch her feelings away, ignoring the thumping of her heart against her ribs. Jess always insisted on finishing his conversations with her, or saying goodbye to her, before going gallivanting with Shane. And where did she get off feeling jealous? Jess was her jackass coworker, who only bordered on a friend. It was easier to pretend nothing was bothering her, lest her cheeks burn with shame each time the bleach blonde girl walked through the diner doors.

The sky was overcast, but the night was supposed to clear up. With Luke out on some date, she and Jess were the ones charged with boarding up the shop for the night. Caesar had gone home early, since the Friday had been unusually slow and he was pretty much useless when closing anyway. When the last customer departed, though it was ten minutes until official closing time, Ella decided to use her authority to call it quits for the day. However, she first had to wrangle Jess off Shane while they made out on the sidewalk, up against the diner window. Shutting her sketchbook, she grimaced at the task at hand, but strode out confidently with her hands on the hips of her blue jeans. 

Clearing her throat, she watched them disentangle themselves from each other, their lips parting with a  _ smack! _ in the warm night air. Ella rolled her eyes. “Jess, we’re closing. You’ll have to take a rain check on the next round of tonsil tennis.”

Jess only smirked, planting one final kiss on Shane’s cheek before making for the door.

Shane rolled her eyes. “ _ Jess. _ ”

“Relax,” Jess grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walked away. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Shane shot a look at Ella. “That stick up your ass must hurt like hell.”

Ella only sighed, a unamused smile on her face. “Charming as always, Shane. Come again any time.”

With the situation diffused, Ella rushed back into the diner before Jess, who was chuckling behind her. Ella didn’t utter a word before she began closing, ducking behind the counter to grab the disinfectant spray and a clean rag. If it was possible, Jess thought she looked even more stressed than usual. She had her hair in a messy updo, cheeks flushed red. Her eyes darted around anxiously, her hands fiddling with the silvery chain of her necklace. Luke had almost sent her back home to change when she showed up for her shift, wearing a black t-shirt with the words EAT ME written across the chest in big white letters. Instead of changing though, she argued her way out of it. It was simply an endorsement of the diner’s products, she’d said. Luke’s eyes had rolled nearly up into the back of his head, but, nonetheless, he’d dropped the subject. 

“Nice to see you and Shane bonding,” Jess quipped as he began gathering up the salt and pepper shakers to store for the night. 

She scoffed. “Yeah, quite a winner you’ve got there.”

Jess raised his brows at her tone. “Are you upset about something?”

“No,” she shot back flatly. “It’s really just such a pleasure to have to watch you tongue-fuck her while I’m at work.”

He straightened up and stopped working, brows furrowed. “Says the girl who’s read  _ Bad Behavior _ , at that very counter where you now stand, three times.”

Still, she didn’t look up as she sighed heavily. Her voice was tired. “I read it. I didn’t have to be subjected to a visual. Would you just wait to suck face until you’re not in view of the customers who’ve come to eat here?”

“Fine. Sorry,” he snapped angrily, going back to the shakers. “Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

“Apology accepted,” she shot back.

“Great.”

“Good.”

. . .

Tense silence had stood between them for the remainder of the evening. Later, Jess laid on his twin bed fuming, the night darkening to an inky black. Stars glowed brightly, the moon new and invisible. The apartment over the diner had its familiar pine smell and was lit low by Jess’s desk lamp. He had no idea what time it was, but found it odd Luke still wasn’t back hours after closing. But the solitude meant he could blast his Shags through the speakers he’d brought back from his old room in New York. They were pretty much the most valuable items he owned, and he didn’t get to use them nearly often enough. Jess was nearly done with  _ The Lovely Bones _ , trying to decipher Ella’s cursive annotations. Of all the books she had traded him, it was perhaps the saddest one yet.

The music was louder than he’d anticipated, as it took nearly four rings of the phone before Jess heard it under the lyrics. He rolled his eyes, but saved his place in the book, turned down the volume, and went to answer. 

“Hello?”

“ _ Jess? _ ” came Ella’s voice through the receiver.

He furrowed his brows. “Eleanor?”

“No, it’s Virginia Woolf, back from the dead,” she said, slurring her words. 

Jess let a chuckle escape his mouth. “Are you  _ drunk? _ ”

“I guess so. My dad was  _ soooo _ pissed. He kicked me out, said not to come back until I had my head on straight. I don’t think my head’s been on straight my entire life,” she rambled, her voice husky and sleepy. 

“Where are you?” Jess asked, his voice earnest.

“The phone booth on Main Street. Why do they still have this here? It’s such antiquated tech-”

“Just stay right there. I’ll come down,” he said shortly, then hung up before she could respond. 

Jess rushed down the stairs and weaved through the dark diner, tables stacked on chairs, leaving the door open as he exited onto the sidewalk. He caught sight of her petite form almost immediately. Out on the deserted street, trudging towards the diner with her hands in her back pockets, watching the sky as she walked. The night was humid. Sighing heavily, Jess came over and touched her arm gently.

Ella flinched, but relaxed when she saw it was him. “Jesus, Mariano. Give a girl some warning.”

Shaking his head slightly, he brought a hand to the small of her back to steady her as they walked. He could smell the alcohol wafting off her, mixed with her normal aroma of lavender and rosemary. “What the hell did you drink?”

“A lot,” she drawled back instantly. They neared the steps of the diner and she blew out a shaky breath. “Can we sit down?”

Before he could even answer, she sat down heavily on the concrete steps. He took the seat beside her, leaving a safe distance between the two of them. 

Ella brought her hand to her mouth and started biting at her nails. A warm breeze blew past them. Ella huffed in frustration and took the elastic from her hair clumsily. She ran her hands through her brassy waves and sniffed. Jess glanced over at her and could tell she had been crying. Her hazel eyes were red-rimmed and her mascara was running slightly. Even drunk, she flushed when she saw him looking at her, and wiped her hands over her cheeks self-consciously. 

“My dad got engaged,” she said suddenly, frankly. 

“Huh.”

“Yep.” There was a pause before she spoke again, crickets singing around them. “We had a fight about it this morning. I got home tonight, and he wouldn’t talk to me. So, I stole a bottle of his tequila to piss him off, get a rise out of him, but then I thought: ‘Fuck it. Just drink it. The day can’t get much worse anyway.’”

Jess nodded, listening. 

“But then he kicked me out for the night. So, yeah, it  _ could  _ get worse. Lorelai’s not home, and Rory’s still in Washington. I sure as hell can’t knock on Lane’s door like this. I just wanted to call and say sorry for being such a jackass earlier.”

“I thought I was the jackass here?” he teased offhandedly. 

She giggled drunkenly, though her eyes were hazy. “Usually. But, just this once, it was me. Just...a bad day.”

“It’s alright,” he assured her, standing up and holding a hand out to her. “You can crash upstairs. Luke’s out but I’m sure it’s fine.”

Ella shook her head and sighed. “Jess, you don’t have to be nice-”

“Fine, I won’t be nice then. Shut up and take my hand,” he said flatly. 

After a long moment, she nodded, grabbing his hand and straightening up. Upon standing, she got dizzy and staggered back. 

“Careful, Stevens,” Jess grumbled, hands hovering over her arms for a moment in the event she fell over. 

“Shut up,” she snapped, retreating back into the diner. 

The way up the stairs was iffy, and by the top Ella was practically holding onto Jess for balance. Jess’s mouth was set in a thin, stern line, though slight worry touched his heart. She sang along quietly with the lyrics of the song which still hummed lowly from the stereo as they entered. It almost made Jess want to smirk, if she hadn’t been so completely smashed. He steered her to his bed, where she immediately flopped onto her back.

“Is this your bed?” she asked, eyes closed and hands behind her head. 

“Yes. But tonight it’s yours,” he sighed, shutting both the music and his desk lamp off. In the bluish glow of the room, he saw her sloppily tug off her shoes. Then, she sat forward with her elbows on her knees, head in her hands. 

“I can just sleep on the couch or the floor or a park bench. Y’know, a couple years ago Taylor went on this asinine crusade to make the benches more comfortable-”

“Just go to sleep, Eleanor,” he scolded. 

“ _ You _ go to sleep,” she retorted lamely, but nonetheless, she flopped onto her back again and scooted up until her head laid on the pillow. But, her glassy eyes remained open and she stared at the ceiling. 

Jess had been fetching her a glass of water, cold from the tap. He was surprised to find her still conscious considering how strong the smell of tequila was when entering her general vicinity. Instead of forcing her to drink the water, a fight which he knew would be fruitless, he just left it on the nightstand. 

“Jess?”

“Yes?”

“Do you believe in fate?”

He scoffed, hands in his pockets as he stood by the bed. “Is now really the best time to solve the mysteries of the universe?”

Giggling, Ella let her eyes flutter shut. “No time like the present.” When she spoke again, her voice had a wistful, far-off quality. “I just...my dad told me he proposed to Fiona because it was fate which brought them together and they were immediately in love and all that shit. But he thought he was in love with my mom and looked how that turned out. I just...most of the time I can’t bring myself to believe in fate or love. Not after everything that happened.”

“Hm,” Jess hummed, brows furrowed. He waited for her to continue, as he knew she would. 

“Fiona’s not a horrible person. But she acts like she’s my mom,” she said, defeated. “And she wouldn’t shut up this morning about me being disrespectful and just...and I can’t talk to Rory and Lane’s busy with her drums and...you with your girlfriend or whatever she is…”

Jess raised his eyebrows at her last comment, but at just the moment he hoped she would continue, she began to doze off. Her breathing deepened, and Jess sighed again. Before she could completely slip into unconsciousness, he went over and rolled her onto her side. Ella stirred, but did not fully wake. He threw the orangey afghan from the end of the bed over her form. 

Creeping over to retrieve the book from his bedside table, Jess was reassured when she curled up into a ball on her side. Before he made it over to the couch where he planned to spend the night, Ella hummed drowsily. 

“Jess?” she croaked, peeking through heavy-lidded eyes.

“Yeah, honey?” he asked, grouchy but not angry. 

“Thank you,” she slurred, grabbing a handful of the blanket in her fist sleepily. 

Jess sighed, and grimaced when a wave of fondness washed over him. “You’re welcome.”

As he flipped through to his marked page, flicking on the floor lamp near the couch and settling in for the night, she began to snore softly. Jess tried to concentrate on the final twenty pages of the book, but knew he would definitely have to reread them. 

. . .

Around half past midnight, Luke’s booted footfalls sounded softly up the stairs to the apartment. He was surprised to find the door unlocked, considering how late Jess had been out with Shane the last few Friday nights. Soft, yellowish light illuminated Luke’s side of the apartment. He thought Jess had fallen asleep with a lamp on, and jumped when he found his nephew with his nose in a book on the old brown leather couch. 

“Jeez!” he exclaimed as he shut the door behind him. 

“Keep it down!” Jess hissed back, saving his place in the book again. Five more pages. “You’ll wake her up.”

“Excuse me?” Luke asked, accusatory, eyebrows raised as he followed Jess’s gaze to the left. He could make out Ella’s face in the dimness, and his confusion only grew. Instantly, he knew Jess had done something. He had to have done something. “What the hell is she doin’ here?”

Jess rolled his eyes as his uncle pointed a finger at him. He hopped up to grab a blanket from the top shelf of the nearby closet. “She called me. She got kicked out for the night and needed a place to crash. I figured it’d be okay.”

“ _ Kicked out? _ ” Luke echoed softly. In all his time knowing Ella, she’d never been one to piss her parents off so severely. The girl worked doubles every weekend and had a 4.0 GPA. “Why?”

“She was wasted. Stole her dad’s tequila,” Jess explained shortly, shutting off the floor lamp and returning to the couch to get some sleep. It had been a long night to say the least. The twinkly lights of the town square still made for relative visibility in the apartment.

Luke sighed heavily at Jess’s nonchalance and loomed over the couch, not done with the conversation. “Did you get her drunk?”

“No,” Jess answered immediately, angrily. “She managed it all on her own. She’s a big girl, y’know.”

“Shut up,” Luke snapped. “You’re telling me Ella Stevens got drunk on her dad’s tequila and called  _ you _ for help?”

Jess nodded and looked up at his uncle in aggravation. “Someone give the man a prize.”

“Why would she call  _ you? _ ” 

“First, I’m absolutely  _ flattered _ by your tone,” Jess droned. “Lorelai wasn’t home, she couldn’t go to Lane’s, and Rory’s still in Washington. So, I was choice number four. Quite an honor. She probably figured you’d be the one at home, anyway.”

Luke groaned quietly at his nephew’s attitude, his hands on his hips. After a particularly terrible date, he hadn’t expected to have to solve another problem at home. 

Satisfied the game of twenty questions was over, Jess crossed his arms over his chest, turned on his side and closed his eyes. 

“I gotta call Jake,” Luke thought aloud, starting towards the phone. 

Jess’s eyes flew open and he jumped up to stop Luke. “No!” he blurted out, a hand on his uncle’s arm, and waited a long moment to make sure Ella hadn’t woken. 

“Jess, she’s a kid. I have to tell her dad where she is,” Luke explained tiredly, rolling his eyes. 

“Really? Her dad who just kicked her out in the middle of the night?” Jess asked doubtfully, eyebrows raised. 

Luke sighed again, and seemed to actually ponder Jess’s words. 

“Look, just let her sleep it off. I’m sure she’ll still have an earful waiting for her tomorrow morning,” Jess said urgently, his eyes flicking over to his bed. 

Taking a long moment to stare thoughtfully at his shoes, Luke finally conceded. “Fine.”

Jess blew out a short breath in relief. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Luke snapped back.

As he retreated back to the couch, Jess caught one last glance at Ella’s sleeping form. Bathed in the starlight, she looked almost ethereal, despite the snoring. “She’ll be fine. I put her on her side so she won’t choke if she throws up or anything. And she’s got water by the bed.”

Furrowing his brows, Luke let a suspicious gaze linger on his nephew. “How’d you know to do that?”

Jess uttered a bitter chuckle. “Liz Danes is my mother. I’m sure you can fill the rest in yourself.”

“Right,” Luke sighed, nodding. He regained his harsh exterior after a moment, pointing a final, warning finger at Jess. “But call me before letting people stay here next time. And, just so we’re clear, there will  _ not _ be a next time.”

Scoffing, Jess turned on his side away from Luke and gave only a noncommittal grunt as an answer. 

. . .

Throwing up in the shower had actually been the high point of her morning. Sneaking out of the apartment at nearly five o’clock, Ella had left nothing more than an empty water glass and a folded afghan on Jess’s bed as traces of her being there. Though the morning was cloudy, her splitting headache still got worse trudging down Main Street back towards her house during sunrise. She’d never been on a walk of shame, and was glad there was no one yet awake to witness it. After unlocking her window with a bobby pin, she’d managed a few more hours of sleep before facing the music of her father’s rage. 

However, stealing his alcohol had proved to have at least one silver lining. Ella was the one with the hangover, so Jake had opted just for disappointed yelling instead of screaming and breaking whatever furniture he could get his hands on. Instead, Ella had to sit through two hours of Jake and Fiona standing with arms crossed, looming over her while she sat hunched at the kitchen table. It wasn’t easy with her stomach swirling and her heartbeat throbbing painfully behind her eyes, but it certainly wasn’t the most brutal dressing down she’d ever received. A two-week grounding with the exception of work and school was in order, and Ella made the compulsory show of accepting the punishment. She knew they would likely forget to enforce it anyway, caught up in their own dramas. 

A shower and a change of clothes had her looking slightly more human by the time she returned to the diner at noon for her eight-hour shift. At least she wasn’t on the books to close. She tried multiple times to apologize to Luke, but he was disinterested at best. Ella could tell he was disappointed, but she would have to wait it out before he would actually talk it out with her. By her break around four in the afternoon, it had already been a long day of the cold shoulder and demanding Saturday afternoon orders. Rather than staying in the diner for some lunch, she opted for a walk around town to keep the churning in her stomach at bay.

The summer haze cast long shadows on the cracked asphalt. As she passed the town square, she breathed in the clean air and decided the headache might finally be passing. The breeze was picking up, and the sound of the vibrant green leaves rustling in the wind washed over her like ocean waves. The smell of exhaust filled the air as she passed the bus stop, the city bus coming to a screeching halt by the bench next to her. She would have ignored it completely, but Jess caught her eye, deboarding the bus with his hands shoved in his pockets. Ella picked up her pace, but Jess had already seen her. He raced up beside her with a wicked smirk on his lips. 

“Wait up, Speed Racer,” he quipped, panting slightly. 

She chuckled halfheartedly. “I’ll give you a second to catch your breath.”

“Ah, I think I’m alright,” he assured her with a shrug. “You on break?”

“Yep,” she said shortly, avoiding his eyes. “Where are you coming from?”

“Shangri-la,” he answered instantly. They were circling back around to the square, and Jess tilted his head to the gazebo. “You wanna sit down? You look a little pale.”

“Sure,” she nodded. “I think the tequila’s had a bit of an effect on my complexion.”

Jess laughed. “Yeah, maybe if you hadn’t downed that last liter it wouldn’t be quite as pronounced.”

“Shut up,” she smiled, seeming to relax just a touch. She tucked some rogue wisps of hair behind her ears as they sat down on the bench in the gazebo, the town buzzing with tourist groups and regulars. 

Before Jess could make some wiseass remark, Ella cleared her throat and cut to the chase. Her cheeks grew rosy but she powered through the nervous fluttering of her heart. “Look, I’m really sorry about last night.”

“It’s okay,” Jess said, shaking his head dismissively. “I’ve had a few nights like that.”

“But I don’t drink. Ever,” she said, speaking with her hands.

Jess snorted. “I’ll say.”

She scoffed self-consciously. “And I  _ don’t _ steal my dad’s booze, and get black-out drunk, and steal my friend’s bed and piss off my boss-”

“Luke’ll come around. Compared to the shit I’ve done? You’re still in JV,” he interjected with a smirk. Though he wished it hadn’t, his heart skipped a beat at her so casually calling him a friend. Even in New York, he’d only a few of those, and none of them had kept in contact with him since coming to Stars Hollow. It occurred to him in the moment how he may have never had a friend like her before, someone who wasn’t disappointed in him, who was excited to talk about books, who called even when they were many miles apart.

“Just let me finish,” she said earnestly, raising a hand to him. 

Jess bit his lip to keep from chuckling at her stubbornness. “Go on.”

“I’m just so embarrassed and I don’t remember most of what I said but I’m just... I’m sorry,” she said, biting at her nails. Her ears were tinged with red, flesh hot with shame. “And thank you for letting me crash. You really didn’t have to do that and...thank you.”

Sighing through his nose, Jess nodded with more sincerity than she expected. 

“And the last time Lane and I went to a party, I tried to recite all the lyrics from the whole  _ Rumors  _ album, so I’m also really sorry if I did that,” she added, a return of some levity. 

Jess laughed. “Don’t worry. You’re in the clear.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank God.”

“Seriously, Stevens, don’t be embarrassed. If it makes you feel any better, I once ate a pumpkin raw when I was drunk,” he admitted, his voice low and conspiratory. 

A confused grin crossed her face. “ _ What? _ ”

“Yep,” he confirmed, nodding. “I’ve sworn off both forties and Halloween parties since then.”

Ella laughed.

“Does that make you feel better?” he asked. 

“A little.” After a moment, the serious air came back. “Thank you, Jess.”

He nodded again. “You’re welcome.”

And, just then, they locked eyes. A charged silence passed between them, and Jess thought he saw something flash behind Ella’s eyes. She had to avert her gaze to hide her blush.

Jess’s stomach did an involuntary flip. But Ella seemed to regain her composure quickly. Had he imagined the look on her face or the redness on her cheeks? When she spoke again, the weight of the moment was gone. 

“So, really, where’d you come from? A drug deal? Are you working on some new form of the  _ Manhattan Project _ ?” she prodded in curiosity. “A date with Shane?”

Jess shook his head, clearing his throat. “No. Shane and I don’t exactly go on dates,” he joked suggestively.

Something between a grimace and a smirk crossed her lips at his implication. “Gross. But I suppose every relationship is different,” she teased.

“I think ‘relationship’ might be a bit of an overstatement,” he said, shrugging. His face was guarded, but Ella could see the corners of his mouth threatening to tick upwards. “She thinks Oscar Wilde is a type of cocktail.”

“ _ No, _ ” she said in disbelief, giggling a little. Eventually, Jess began to chuckle and both of them laughed together. People passing by raised brows at the two of them. Most of them had never seen Jess smile. 

“And we don’t know each other's last names,” Jess continued, biting his lip to fend off another smirk.

She shook her head, but kept giggling. “How romantic.”

“That it is,” he quipped.

Ella smirked and glanced down at her watch.

“My break’s almost over. You coming back to the diner?” she asked, ignoring the still air sitting in the small distance from her face to his own. 

He shook his head. “Not yet. I have some things to do.”

“Specific.”

“I know. I am famous for my candor,” he said. “But I’ll be by later to help with dinner. You’ll get your book back with some brand new notes in the margins.”

“Lucky me,” she smiled. “Next on your list….” she paused, racking her brain for one of the many suggestions she’d thought of giving him. “Joan Didion.”

“Is that the lady from LA?” he asked. 

“That’s the one. She makes it sound even better than New York.”

“Well, I’ll be the judge of that,” Jess said, watching her rise from her seat. Her black skirt came to her mid-thigh, and he saw some yellowed bruises on her knees. “And you’re in for another classic. Bukowski himself.”

She leaned on the white railing, readying herself to descend the steps and return to the diner. Her eyebrows were raised doubtfully. “We’ll just have to see about that ‘classic’ business.”

“Prepare to eat your words!” he called after her as she rushed away. He could tell she was anxious to be back on time, for fear of even more passive aggression from Luke. 

“Ditto!” she returned. 

Jess watched her go, disappearing back into Luke’s with her nails chewed. And found himself oddly content in the July afternoon heat. 

  
  



	10. Catherine, Heathcliff, and Shangri-la

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though she plans to spend her birthday alone, Ella ends up passing time on the late August evening with Jess, eating old pie and playing cards.

She looked like a dream in her sundress. Late August light bathed the crowds at the summer festival, and Ella practically glimmered when Jess spotted her from across the square. It made him feel like an idiot thinking the way he was, but she had an effect on him which he’d previously only read about in books. He wasn’t sure exactly when the tipping point had been, when he’d truly fallen in love with her, passed the point of no return. But he had. And he was. He loved a girl who didn’t believe in love, who wasn’t into dating, who didn’t feel the same. It had never been so complicated before, and he’d never been so completely screwed. There were moments, times when his heart nearly burst from the hope. When she laughed at one of his wiseass remarks, or ran her fingertips over the notes he’d left in the margins of her poetry books, or let her eyes linger on him for just a second too long. But each time, she would brush it off, act like nothing had happened. And he’d be forced to wonder if he’d imagined the electricity passing between them. 

Slowly, over the course of the summer, he was beginning to come to terms with it. Maybe they could just be friends, coworkers. Maybe all he needed was to make out with Shane until his lips were swollen and his mind was blank and his memory would be wiped clean of all the times Ella had made him feel deeper than he ever had before. Besides, he had never fallen in love before, had never uttered the three fateful words in all his seventeen years. A small part of him believed he could snap out of it easily. 

He took his eyes back from her form, concentrating on the girl in front of him. The girl who wanted him and nothing more. Who meant nothing but ease and pleasure. Sliding his hands down in her back pockets, Jess closed his eyes and placed kisses down Shane’s neck, the bark of the tree they leaned on rough against his back. 

. . .

“She’s back with a vengeance!” Ella exclaimed, wrapping her arms around Rory in a gleeful embrace. 

They stood together near a flower stand, the fragrant display adding sweetness to the air. Despite the barber shop quartet droning on in the background, Ella felt her spirits lift at the sight of Rory Gilmore, her confidant missing in action over the summer at an internship in Washington. In the back of her mind, Ella couldn’t help reminding herself that soon, she would have to deal with the constant separation. Rory would be off at Harvard, Lane would be touring with her band (hopefully), and Ella would be stuck. As she always had been. She’d have to fill Rory in on how the college applications were going later. 

Rory laughed happily, pulling away from Ella and holding her at an arm’s length. “Yes, and with all the hot DC gossip.”

“I’m intrigued,” Ella said, raising an eyebrow. 

From behind them, Lorelai beamed, her own face painted with joy, her daughter back in town. Ella loved that about summer. It had a special kind of magic no other season could manage, positivity radiating from everyone, dampened only by the occasional rainy day. 

“Alright, let’s go find Lane, and we are in for a movie night of epic proportions!” Lorelai announced, strolling around the square with the two teens in tow. 

Before they departed completely, however, Rory followed Ella’s distracted gaze to the old oak where Jess stood, eating his girlfriend’s face. 

“Oh,  _ God! _ ” Rory exclaimed, scrunching up her face in disgust. 

Ella blushed, Rory having noticed her staring. She hadn’t meant to. But seeing the two of them together, considering the many fights with Shane the summer had brought, gave her a feeling of irritated uneasiness. Like a car crash she couldn’t look away from. Morbid interest feeding morbid interest in a vicious, voyeuristic cycle.

Tilting her head to the scene in question, Lorelai scoffed. “Guess he’s got his ‘What I Did This Summer’ essay all planned out.”

“I know,” Ella groaned. “America’s youth really does have such admirable modesty.”

Snorting a laugh, Rory shot a knowing look at her mother. “Have they been at that a lot?”

Ella nodded, speeding up in her stride a little to get out of view of the display. “Yep. It’s now part of the Early Bird Special at the diner. Dinner and a show.”

Lorelai faked a gag. “I told you. The kid gives off major Sid Vicious vibes.”

“Looks like he’s found his Nancy,” Rory added. 

“And he’s been so weird at work lately. He barely talks to me, just sits on his little stool. Reading, brooding, scaring off small children. Maybe I pissed him off. I don’t know,” Ella said. She fiddled with the chain of her necklace.

“Um….Ella?” Rory began, bringing a hand to the blonde girl’s shoulder. “Do you not realize you’re the Catherine to his Heathcliff?”

Ella scoffed, laughing breathily. “ _ What? _ ”

“He’s totally into you!” Lorelai exclaimed. 

Raising a brow, Ella rolled her eyes and kept walking. She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “Very funny.”

“Every time he looks at you…” Lorelai said, feigning a swoony look. “It’s sickening.”

“Yeah, right. I bet it’s Rory he’s into,” Ella argued, shrugging them off once more. 

“Oh really?” Rory asked skeptically. “Then why does he make those notes in your margins? In the poetry books he said he  _ hated _ when he first got here?”

“It’s mutually assured destruction,” Ella explained. “If he stops taking a chance on poetry, I’ll stop taking a chance on the beats. The arguments would ensue, the diner would descend into chaos. In an effort to avoid certain death during our shifts together, we compromise.”

“Ah, the key to a strong relationship’s foundation,” Lorelai retorted. 

Snorting a laugh, Ella shook her head. Without the flowers and the serenity of solitude, the less desirable aspects of the festival began to wear on Ella’s psyche. The barber shop quartet spun around and around in her head, making her dizzy, and the sun beat down on them. Stray strands of hair, fallen from her bun, began to stick to her damp forehead. 

Suddenly, an idea occurred to Ella. “Rory, my dear?”

“Yes?” Rory answered with suspicion. 

“You know how you always give me presents on my birthday even though I tell you not to?” Ella asked.

“I’m aware of the annual birthday commiseration,” Rory said, nodding. 

“Well, I’d like to request, as a birthday present for your favorite waitress, a moratorium on the Jess talk until I am seventeen years and one day old,” Ella suggested, fluttering her eyelashes jokingly. 

Sighing, Rory linked her arm with Ella’s. “Alright, but only because you asked so very nicely.”

“Good to have you back, Thelma,” Ella smiled fondly, pulling her friend a little closer.

“Same to you, Louise.”

Lorelai chuckled and shook her head, watching as the girls ascended the steps to Lane’s door.

. . .

Mercifully, Ella had made it through the day with minimal birthday wishes and no attempts at gift-giving. Lorelai and Rory had teased her about a surprise party, but she knew they wouldn’t truly dare. Instead of going home, where she knew she’d have to brave Fiona’s pathetic attempts at celebration, she wandered around town aimlessly. It made her feel guilty to snap at the woman so much, but she just couldn’t help herself. Watching Fiona, only twelve years her senior, traipsing around in her house, humming the Dixie Chicks songs she knew her mother would’ve hated. Before she could apply any rational thought to the decision, she found her way to the bridge. The greenish-black water sparkled in glowing moonlight. Crickets sung and cicadas buzzed, a low summer tune. She hung her booted feet over the edge, the black cotton of her dress pooling around her knees. Rifling through her shoulder bag to the side, she found a copy of  _ The Grapes of Wrath _ . A perfect book to sustain her gloomy mood. She laid back against the wooden planks of the pier, holding the novel above her face, blocking out the view of the clear night. The humidity had dissipated, and a cool breeze blew past her. 

A few peaceful moments had passed before she heard footfalls thumping heavily, vibrating beneath her back. She sighed as the noise got closer, letting the book fall to her chest and rolling her eyes. 

“Stealing my spot, huh?” Jess spoke up as he approached, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. 

“Sorry, didn’t realize you’d bought the property.”

“Touché.”

Though Ella still hadn’t looked over at him, she heard him sit down next to her. She could smell the subtle mixture of hair gel and pine. 

“By all means, sit down,” she snapped, sitting up again, placing her scrap of construction paper back in the book to save her place. She stuffed it back in her bag to the left. Fiddling with the end of the loose braid which hung over her shoulder, she sighed again. 

Jess scoffed. “Jeez, Daria. Don’t pull your punches.”

“Shut up, Jess,” she replied flatly, staring out across the water. In the light, she knew she would’ve been able to watch schools of tiny grey fish whizzing by. As a child, she’d imagined small mermaids living in a crystalline village beneath the surface of the dull silt and sand. 

“Feelin’ pithy tonight?” he drawled, an eyebrow raised. 

“You could say that.”

He only nodded, leaning back on his palms. Silence stood between the two of them, heavy in the nighttime air. Ella almost put her nails to her mouth, then thought better of it. When Jess still didn’t speak, she huffed out a big breath and finally tossed him a glance. 

“Don’t you have someone to verbally abuse at the diner or a girlfriend’s face to suck or something?” she asked. 

Jess shot her a look. Before he could even respond, Ella spoke again. 

“As long as you’re here, could you loan me a cigarette?” she asked, a shameful blush coloring her cheeks. As much as the request embarrassed her, she couldn’t stand the way her skin was crawling. 

“ _ What? _ ” Jess blurted out, eyes wide. “What happened to the periodic surgeon general’s warnings?”

She sighed, dropping her gaze to her lap and clearing her throat. “I’ve gotta keep you on your toes, don’t I?”

Though slightly flabbergasted, Jess’s eyes shone fondly, remembering the carriage ride they’d taken at the Bracebridge dinner so many months ago. After a moment, he produced a crumpled packet and a lighter from his pocket and handed them to her. 

“Thank you,” she muttered, placing a cigarette between her lips. It surprised her that he actually obliged, considering how stand-offish he’d been at work lately. The lighter struck on the first try, the small orange flame flickering warmly in the darkness. And Jess could tell immediately it was far from the first time she’d smoked. She handed the supplies back to him.

He took a cigarette of his own and lit it up. 

“Don’t tell Luke,” she said, voice slightly husky as she exhaled the first puff of smoke. Her words came out in dim blue clouds. 

“I wouldn’t dare,” he replied, tapping ash into the lake and watching it burn out. “Your secret is safe, Stevens.”

“Thanks. I’ll consider it a birthday present,” she grumbled, feeling the familiar burn of smoke in her chest. She knew she would regret the decision in the morning. 

“It’s your birthday?”

“Yep.”

“Happy birthday,” he said reflexively, eyebrows raised. 

Scoffing bitterly, Ella flicked ash off her cigarette with her thumb. “Thanks, Mariano.”

“Is that why you’re gonna bite my head off at the next wrong move?”

She laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, birthdays aren’t my thing.”

“Huh. And I guess that’s why no one said anything at work?”

Ella nodded. “Yeah, after a few crying customers last year, Luke ordered the diner a birthday-free zone.”

“Wise of him.”

“It was.”

Regarding her in the moonlight, Jess sighed. “Any particular reason for the birthday allergy?”

Swallowing harshly, Ella brought her free hand to her necklace and a smirk formed on her face. “It’s just...my mom was a big birthday person. Without her here, it just all feels a little artificial. It’s weird. The anniversary of the day she died never hits me as hard as Mother’s Day, or today.”

He nodded, solemn as she continued. 

“I try to spend as little time at home as I can. And Rory and Lorelai always try to get me to do something,” she said, pausing to inhale deeply and blow out a stream of smoke. “But I am nothing if not pertinacious.”

“Nice. Ten-cent word.”

“Thanks. Used it in the crossword this morning. I’d say it’s at least twenty cents,” she said, scoffing in mock offense.

Jess chuckled. “Alright, I’ll cave for the birthday girl.”

“How kind of you.”

Crushing the smoldering butt of her cigarette on the weathered bridge wood, Ella exhaled out her nose and crossed one leg over the other. She smoothed her hands over her dress. Somewhere, a loon cried. Jess sat quietly beside her, the last of his cigarette glowing as he inhaled. When he put it out, he stood up and made to leave. Ella didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at him. After a second of thought, he held a hesitant hand out to her. 

“Let’s go back to the diner,” he proposed with finality. “Eat some of the leftover pie.”

Looking at his hand, Ella thought of the book in her bag. The hours she could spend alone with nothing but Steinbeck to entertain her. But then, she felt a sudden rush of courage at the thought of Luke’s. Free of people, with pastries under the glass domes on the counters and stale pies in the back fridge. And Jess. She heaved a sigh, then slung her bag over her shoulder and grabbed his hand. 

. . .

“No way,” Jess said, shaking his head doubtfully as he took another bite of the pie. 

Ella smiled, nodding. “I swear. I was named the  _ worst _ dancer out of all the little girls ever taught at Miss Patty’s by the  _ Gazette _ . I was responsible for the domino incident of 1992 which caused two sprained ankles and one broken arm. Suffice it to say, the arm was mine.”

“Jesus,” Jess laughed, his eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, I’m Patrick Swayze’s worst nightmare.”

Jess rolled his eyes and threw his head back with a dramatic groan. “I’ll never understand your fixation with those cheesy eighties movies.”

“You bite your tongue, heathen,” she said lightly, digging another bite from the cold apple pie in the tin between them.

“Well, at least we can agree on Steinbeck,” he shrugged through a laugh. 

She nodded and sighed tiredly, brought a hand to her necklace. 

The diner shone brightly against the otherwise dark landscape of Main Street. Ella could hear Luke snoring from all the way upstairs, but it was almost comforting if not amusing. With the leftover pie between them, she and Jess sat alone amongst chairs stacked on tables and cutlery put away. It smelled vaguely of disinfectant, but the pine was still there, making her heart feel just a touch less broken. Maybe being alone wasn’t the best way to pass one of the hardest days of her year. 

“I’m surprised she still even lets you step foot in the studio, leaving that much carnage in your wake,” Jess said, smirking at the way the tension slowly released from her shoulders. 

Snorting a laugh, Ella took another bite of the pie. She could tell it was made from her recipe, heavy on the cinnamon. “Well, the years have improved my coordination a little bit.”

“But have they?” he teased.

“Shut up,” she retorted, good nature in her voice. 

A comfortable pause filled the air. Jess’s eyes caught her thin fingers still rolling the silver chain of her necklace. She blew up a long breath and straightened up, putting her fork back down in the tin, the half-pie almost all the way gone. 

Nodding, Jess swallowed dryly and bit at his lip. “Why do you wear that necklace every day?”

Eyes widening, Ella couldn’t help but feel taken aback by the question. She let out a self-conscious scoff and her hand immediately dropped away from her collar. The small silver charm, a key, glinted in the yellow diner light. 

“My grandmother gave it to me,” she explained, her tone even though she avoided his eyes. “It’s the key to the jewelry box she had when she was little. The box got lost, but the key stayed. She was a singer. Friends with Miss Patty. Pretty fucking cool.”

Jess smiled a tiny smile. “Sounds like it.”

“Yeah,” she replied, the word a sigh. Then, after a beat, she regained her direct nature and looked him in the eye. “Okay, since we’re asking questions tonight: why the hell are there bongos on the shelf above your desk?”

Jess laughed, but his cheeks reddened a touch. “Those were there when I moved in. Scout’s Honor.”

She rolled her eyes. “ _ You _ are the last person in the world they would ever let into the Scouts.”

“Wow, that one hurt.”

Ella smiled. “Then what’s  _ Luke _ doing with those bongos?”

“Preparing for a Matthew McConaughey,” Jess shot back knowingly. 

“Ugh, that image is gonna be burned in my mind forever,” she groaned, nose scrunching up in disgust. 

“You’re welcome.”

“Fuck you,” she said, grinning.

“Right back at ya.” 

Suddenly, a loud snore came from the floor above them. 

“Speaking of,” Ella grumbled, only in mock irritation.

“Like you don’t snore.”

“Only when I’m drunk,” she said, then looked up at him, accusatory. “But  _ you _ . Oh my god, it was all night long. Really, the two of you put together could probably break some sonic records.”

Instead of retorting, Jess retrieved his weathered deck of cards from one of his jean pockets. He raised his eyebrows as a challenge and began shuffling. “Just for that last comment, you’re about to be massacred at Rummy.”

. . .

A knot of anxiety sat in her stomach, but work was helping her keep it at bay. It was the last Saturday of summer, Monday the start of senior year. But the waves of butterflies fluttering around in her chest weren’t ones of nervousness, more only of dread. The constant drudgery of school work, the monotony of the day. She liked summer for more reasons than the mood and the weather. Free time to read, to draw, to paint. And she much preferred painting the full greenery over the desolate landscapes of a Connecticut winter. The fact she hadn’t seen Jess since the night before, when she left the diner satisfied with herself for winning three hands in a row, was doing nothing to calm her either. After cleaning up from the breakfast rush, Ella was mindlessly reorganizing the mugs on the cubby shelf to the left of the counter by color and size. 

“Alright, this is ridiculous,” Luke admonished, walking up behind her.

She scoffed. “It’s not my fault these mugs haven’t been reorganized since Reagan was president.”

“Because they were the last ones you hadn’t got your hands on. You’re starting to sound like Taylor.”   
  


Instantly, she turned and narrowed her eyes at him. “The next time you say that to me I’m turning in my apron and never looking back!”

Luke scoffed in disbelief at her dramatics. “Just take your break, Ella.”

“You think I’m bluffing,” she warned, untying her apron and leaving it on the hook near the kitchen window, “but I’m dead serious.”

“I’m quaking in my boots,” Luke replied flatly, gathering some receipts from the side of the cash register. 

“I bet,” she shot back, rounding the corner and going to dig through her bag, hanging by the front door. “Is Jess here? I’ve got a book for him.”

“Upstairs,” Luke said shortly. 

Retracting her hand from the shoulder bag, with a worn collection of Dorothy Parker, she rolled her eyes. She tucked her hair behind her ears and prepared to disappear behind the checkered curtain on the way to the stairs. 

“Has anyone ever told you you’re a master conversationalist?” she asked. 

“Shaddup,” he groaned, waving an annoyed hand at her in the direction of the apartment. 

Ella snickered, then bounded up the stairs, the soles of her old converse a little slippery on the creaking wood. She heard the TV droning on from inside, daytime Saturday shows. Only a couple short knocks sounded on the door before she let herself in, as she had so many times before when fetching random items during her shifts. 

“Hey, Jess-” she began, turning to the left, Jess’s room. 

Cut off by a sudden flash of noise, she watched Jess stuff a blue mesh vest quickly into the top drawer of his dresser. Eyes wide with surprise, he faced her with a scowl, brows scrunched up. 

“Ever hear of knocking, Daria?” he snapped. 

Processing the scene before her, Ella blinked a couple times and bit the inside of her cheek. “Sorry. Guess I was too quiet.”

“Apparently.” He crossed his arms over his  _ Punk Planet _ t-shirt and looked at her expectantly. “You need something?”

Ella cleared her throat, looking down at the book in her hands. “Yeah, I had that Dorothy Parker I was telling you about last night and…” she paused, glancing at his dresser. “I’m sorry, Jess, but I simply can’t ignore this. Was that a Walmart vest?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

He straightened up, defensively. “No.”

“Really?”

“You heard me,” he shot back.

Pursing her lips, she nodded, unconvinced. She stepped a little closer to him, one hand on the hip of her skirt. “So, what was it?”

“A shirt.”

“A shirt with a Walmart logo on it?” she asked, her voice gaining a teasing lilt.

Jess scoffed. “I think you need glasses.”

A momentary staring contest ensued, and she watched him squirm under her hazel gaze. “Do you work at Walmart, Jess?”

Sighing through his nose, Jess glared at her. Then, he ran a hand through his hair and side-stepped Ella, making his way to the kitchen. “Fine. Yes. You happy?”

Instantly, a smile spread wide on her face. “Oh, so very happy.”

“Glad to hear it,” he growled, avoiding eye contact as he popped open a can of soda. He sat down at the kitchen table, facing the  _ I Dream of Jeannie _ rerun. 

Biting back her giggles, Ella came over to take the rickety kitchen chair next to him. Clearing her throat, she put the book in her hand on the table between then. She smoothed her slightly wrinkled Patti Smith t-shirt and tried to appear nonchalant, a smirk ever-present on her lips. Jess sipped his soda, eyes dark and moody, embarrassment underneath a thin layer of irritation. Nearly five minutes passed on the oven clock in the small kitchen, both of them watching Barbara Eden’s foibles in silence. Ella bit a little at her nails, but only to mask her amused expression. 

“So...all this time...Shangri-la was Walmart?” she asked. 

Jess sighed, rolling his eyes. “Eleanor-”

“You work at  _ Walmart _ ,” she repeated, chuckling a little. 

“Whatever. You smoke,” he countered.

“Like, twice a year,” she said defensively. “When did you even start that job?”

Bowing his head slightly, Jess finally dropped the act a bit. “June. When you were in New Britain.”

She sighed, nodding, then brought a hand to his arm. “I’m really proud of you. I mean, you can’t waste all your people skills at the diner.”

Jess shook her off and rolled his eyes again. “Shut up. I move stock around on a fork-lift in the back.”

“Okay, tough guy.”

“And don’t tell Luke,” he said, finally looking her in the eye. 

She shrugged. “Fine, I won’t. Cross my heart.”

“Thank you,” he snapped.

“You’re very welcome,” she replied, still grinning. “Seriously, though, it’s not that lame. Trust me. I think it’s cool. You have your own thing going, y’know?”

Jess scoffed in doubt but said nothing more.

Clearing her throat, Ella shifted her eyes down to her lap for a second, the tone of her voice changing. “But enough about your double-life, Mr. Bond. I just wanted to bring you that book. And also thank you for last night.”

Jess raised a brow, eyes on the TV screen. “For what?”

“I don’t know. If you hadn’t come along, my plan was to read Steinbeck at the lake, then sneak home and listen to Nirvana through my headphones,” she explained. “But instead I got to eat old pie and kick your ass at cards.”

“Such a sore winner,” he muttered, cracking a little smirk.

She laughed quietly, her fingers finding their way to her necklace. “And sorry if I was...I don’t usually talk about my mom. Not exactly a crowd-pleasing topic. Just on Mother’s Day and my birthday, I...You didn’t have to listen.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t do things I don’t wanna do,” he said, casting her a momentary glance, a small, lopsided smile on his face. It was more genuine than she was prepared for, and she had to look away as her cheeks heated up. 

Rising from the table, she made to leave, hoping not to overstay her welcome. “Anyway, thanks. It was the best birthday I’ve had in awhile.”

Running a hand over his mouth, Jess blew out a breath and faced her fully again. “Anytime, Stevens.” 

He looked as though he were about to say something more, but she could practically see him swallow it down. Instead, he got up from his seat and switched off the TV. Going over to his side of the apartment, she watched him grab a CD from the top of a small stack on his dresser. She couldn’t quite read the cover, but could see it was filled with shades of black and red. 

“How long do you have left on your break?” 

Ella looked down at her watch then back up at him. “Still have about twenty minutes.”

He nodded, gesturing to the CD. “I get fifteen percent off at the store, so I picked this up the other day. Just came out. It made me think of you. I thought you might wanna listen?”

“Oh,” she said dumbly, surprised. She nodded. “Yeah, yeah, sure. As long as it’s not jazz.”

“It’s not,” Jess assured her, chuckling. 

As he opened his closet and brought out the small stereo, she took a few steps closer, arms crossed. She couldn’t help the fluttering in her chest or the way her cheeks flushed with heat. In all the time she’d known Jess, she couldn’t remember ever feeling quite so anxious around him. Quite so antsy. She almost couldn’t explain the feeling, but it wasn’t one she minded. 

“I would’ve shown you last night if I knew it was your birthday,” he mentioned as he pressed play. 

As the music started, he suddenly didn’t know what to do with himself. Sit on the bed? On his desk chair? Instead, he leaned on the desktop itself, hands stuffed in his pockets. He regretted the decision already, showing her the music. He’d meant to do it at some point, during one of their friendly book exchanges. But then the air between them had become charged again, and she was about to walk away from the moment. He wanted it to last just a little longer, time with the one person in Stars Hollow he actually enjoyed being with. Even if she didn’t feel quite the same as him, even if she never would. 

Ella felt the slight vibrations of the music in the soles of her soles as she stepped closer to the stereo, picking up the CD case from his dresser. She turned it over in her hands.  _ Turn on the Bright Lights _ by Interpol. It surprised her she hadn’t heard of them before; Lane usually kept her in the know about such things. They must have been very young, very new. But she liked it, the echoing guitars and the drums. Judging from the back cover, the song to which they now listened was simply called “Untitled.”

“They’re good,” she said, putting the case back down. “Different. I like it.”

Jess shrugged. “Figured you would. What with all that sad shit you listen to. The other songs are a little more lively. They’re no Fleetwood Mac, but…”

Walking closer still, she stopped when she was only a couple feet in front of him. Her heart beat with the music, and she swallowed dryly. Something was clicking in her head.

“Jess?”

He looked up, and his brown eyes locked with hers. “Yeah?”

Before she could rethink it, before she could talk herself out of it, before she could silence her heart with her head, she brought a hand to the back of his neck and kissed him. His shock was sudden but brief. Almost immediately, he wound his arms around her waist. And he was kissing back, sweetly, gently at first, then deeper. She was flush against him, smiling into it. The music beat quietly around them, and his grip was warm, and his lips felt exactly right. Ella wanted it to never end, for the moment to last forever, alive, and never cross over and turn to mere memory. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! This fic can also be found on my tumblr (also called athingthatwantsvirginia). Thank you for reading! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	11. Much Beloved Dickinson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella comes to a realization.

Caught up in the music, Ella ran her hands through his hair. She felt his palms on her waist, firm but not too much. Not hungry. Sweet. He was sweeter than she thought he would be, a rain which refreshed instead of dampened. But then, the song switched. Ella felt reality coming back to her, unable to be shamelessly ignorant, indulging in her senses. Putting a hand on his chest, she pulled away from him. His hands still ghosted over her hips, not yet ready to let go. They breathed heavily, both flushed. Jess began to smirk, and Ella almost followed him, but then her face fell and she turned away. 

“Oh,  _ fuck _ ,” she muttered to herself, clutching her necklace. 

Jess furrowed his brows and reached out to touch her, not quite far enough. “Elle, I-”

“No, Jess. You have a girlfriend,” she spoke slowly, turning back to him. Her expression was guarded, unreadable. “And I just kissed you and you kissed me back. And you have a girlfriend and now we’re the kind of people who-”

“Wait, hold on, I can call Shane right now and-”

“Just like you’ll call me when the next girl comes along?” she interjected, crossing her arms over her chest.

Taking a step back, Jess couldn’t help but feel slightly wounded at the accusation. “There won’t be a next girl.”

“Yeah,  _ right _ ,” she scoffed, making to leave. 

Jess barely had time to process what was going on before she was making her way down the stairs. But then, he started after her, calling her name.

“Can we just sit down and talk about this?”

“Nothing to talk about,” she shot back in a clipped tone, rushing down. Luke stood at the counter refilling stray coffee cups, and she didn’t cast him more than a second of a glance before going to grab her bag. “Luke, I don’t feel well. I gotta go.”

“What? Ella, wait-” Luke said, confusion etched on his features, but she had already disappeared down the street, out of the view of the diner’s window. 

Bounding after her, Jess nearly made it out the door before Luke caught him by the shoulder. 

“Get off me,” Jess growled, but Luke held firm.

“What happened up there?” Luke demanded, turning his nephew to look him in the eye.

Jess scoffed, finally shaking Luke off. “Nothing.”

“Oh, yeah? Where’s Ella goin’?” 

“I don’t know, Columbo. Why don’t you go ask her?” Jess shot back, brow heavy and eyes dark. 

Before Luke could continue with the interrogation, Jess slipped past him, the bell over the door ringing cheerily. Luke stood there for a moment, fuming, and didn’t bother to go after Jess to tell him he’d started in the opposite direction of Ella. 

. . .

Thoughts racing, Ella sat against her bedroom wall, sketchbook in hand. Over the record player speakers, Jeff Buckley crooned. The summer evening had brought with it heavy thunderclouds. Air hot with lightning, Ella knew the rains would start soon. The dim light of the lamp on her nightstand gave her room a cozy glow, tinged pink from the paint on the walls. She wished she had watercolors. Back in the art room of Stars Hollow High, a series of her morbid drawings painted over with dull watercolor hung on a cork board. Unless, of course, Mrs. Shaw had taken them down over the summer. At least with the new school year, she could add some new pieces to her collection. 

Even after a phone call with Rory, and another with Lane, she couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach. She couldn’t identify its origin. Dread for school? Regret over Jess? Excitement over Jess? Guilt. That one she knew was present. Shane wasn’t exactly her best friend, but she certainly never planned to make out with her boyfriend as revenge. No matter how many Interpol songs he played her. 

But it was the way he’d been looking at her, soft and clean. Unlike any look she’d seen him give anyone else. Of course, she’d had butterflies when he’d looked at her before. She’d never felt anything more, though. She figured it was a crush: a blushy, embarrassing phase which would eventually pass. Nothing to ruin a solid friendship over.

But as the song played, the one which reminded him of her, he shot her that brown-eyed look. With his smart mouth and his rough attitude and his hidden kindness. She knew it wasn’t a crush. It was more, something swelling in her heart like she couldn’t describe. Radiating from her soul and circulating throughout her being. And she’d seen no other choice but to kiss him. In a way, she felt so silly. Had she missed it all this time? Swapped books and spare t-shirts and care packages and borrowed beds. Jess. 

She bit her lip, her pencil poised over her empty page. Nothing would flow, nothing would come. Everything was too jumbled inside her head. For a moment, she was tempted to just scribble mindlessly, but decided against it. Why waste a page on someone who didn’t really want her? She knew he didn’t. He couldn’t. 

A sudden flash from childhood came to her. Her mother and father. The touches, the whispers, the small gifts which meant more than their price. Her parents had seemed the model couple, a love story which was meant to last forever, and be told as an inspiration to gullible children. But it didn’t last. Love didn’t last. Love didn’t exist. The feeling in Ella’s stomach, the look in Jess’s eyes, it was all a lie. People said they loved each other, but in the end, it was all a fleeting feeling. 

With the murmurs of the new couple, Fiona and her father, coming through the neighboring walls, even over the music, she shook her head. Did they have love? She doubted it. Despite the modest rock on Fiona’s left hand. Jewels. It was flashy, sparkly, but it was just a stand-in for something substantive which didn’t exist. A stupid tradition masking a lie, like the basket sale with a much higher price tag. 

Sighing heavily, she shut the book, tossing the pencil in the direction of her desk and missing. Huffing out a breath, she laid back against the king mattress, all squeaking springs, with dips on either side from where her parents had slept for so many years. Fiona had requested a new bed upon moving in. Ella had debated not taking it, but at the time the mattress had still smelled like her mother. It was too painful to let it go. The comforter was cool against her flustered skin. Ansty nerves rushed through her, buzzing. She wanted to forget it, to go about her business. Take an extra shift at the diner or go for a walk around town. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop replaying the moment over and over. 

Employing a new strategy, she grabbed a book from the pile next to one of her crate nightstands. A reluctant smile crossed her face as she saw the cover.  _ Final Harvest _ , the first Emily Dickinson collection she’d shared with Jess. And she tried to stare at the text, the beauty of the simple words. Instead she got caught up in the pencil marks covering nearly every page, every blank space. Between the blocks of messy cursive she recognized as her own, she ran her eyes over Jess’s countless comments, in his surprisingly neat, if spiky, scrawl.

_ You told me she wrote about flowers, not death. I feel criminally duped, Stevens. _

_ Do you believe in ghosts? I bet you don’t buy that shit. I don’t either.  _

_ Shakespeare wrote so much about the sun, just like her. I don’t think the moon gets enough credit. You seem like a moon person too. (That’s code for vampire) _

_ Scratch that, I changed my mind. You’re not a sun person or a moon person. You’re a star person. Definitely. _

_ Okay, that line was pretty beautiful. You win this time, Eleanor. (The battle, not the war. I bet that Kerouac I just gave you will finally make you see the error of your tastes.) _

Swallowing dryly, she bit back a smile. At his words, at his writing, at the thought of him. And, before she could think better of it, she flipped to the final page, to a note she’d run her fingers over more than once. And, after all the months she’d known him, she felt like she was really reading it for the first time. 

_ Alright, I read your much beloved Dickinson. _

_ I have to admit, she wasn’t half bad. You happy? I hope you are. But, rest assured, this isn’t over. I will convince you how good Hemingway is, no matter how close-minded about him you are. Yes, he was a drunk. But Dickinson was an invalid. It cancels out. No question. No quarter. _

_ And there are so many more beats awaiting you. Some many fights we’re going to have. Can’t wait, right? Put on your dancing shoes, Stevens. The best is yet to come. _

Turning her head, she gazed over the stack of books. Countless spines, tattered and new, broken and intact, all filled with notes. To the words, to the author, to each other. Mostly to each other. How could she not have seen it before? She thought he was her friend, maybe even her best friend. The one she saw every day, even in the absence of Rory or Lane. Who cheered her up on Mother’s Day, on her birthday, brought her a care package when she had a headache. But it had always been more. The feeling had always been there, underneath their layers of mock anger and annoyance, silly arguments and endless talks. 

The knot in her stomach tightened even more, and she sat up straight in her bed. Lightning flashed outside, the sky an angry shade of grayish purple. A bruise. She didn’t know what she felt, she didn’t know much. But, suddenly, all the other thoughts went from her mind. And her desire was so singular all she could do was tug on her shoes, rushing out the door. It didn’t have to be decided. She already knew. She didn’t have to have it all figured out, but she knew there was no use in ignorance. Sitting in her room, letting the doubt close in on her. It was fruitless. Maybe once, the world wouldn’t bite. 

. . .

Electricity filled the air, smelling of the storm to come, and it pressed down on the people of Stars Hollow. Few milled about on the streets, though most were hunkered down in their homes. A Saturday spent indoors, though not altogether wasted. She made it to the diner in no time, the soles of her converse smacking on the sidewalk as she bounded over and up the steps. The bell overtop the front door jingled, and a few customers peppered the tables, halfway through their dinners. Luke had his palms pressed against the counter, leaning over to talk to Lorelai as she sat at one of the stools. Ella made for the two of them immediately. 

“Where’s Jess?”

Luke’s happy expression dropped and he sighed tiredly. “I don’t know. He stormed out right after you.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella nodded. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear,” Luke said flatly.

Ella wanted to roll her eyes, but knew the sass was warranted. She had walked out in the middle of a shift, after all. 

“What happened with Jess?” Lorelai chimed in, sipping on her nightly coffee.

Blowing out a small breath, Ella debated her next words carefully. “Remember when you told me not to fall for him? The torches and pitchforks conversation?”

Lorelai nodded, face darkening. If there was one thing she knew, it was teenage girls. “It comes to mind, yes.”

“Well, it’s too late. And it’s about to rain, a real killer for torches. Just a waste of money, at this point,” she explained dryly 

Then, she had spun away, whisking out of the diner and leaving the two of them speechless in her wake. Urgency made her heart pound, though she knew it wasn’t dire. She could talk to him tomorrow. Maybe at the diner, maybe in the apartment, maybe in school on Monday. But, for whatever reason, she felt she might never get it out if she wanted a moment too long. She had to see him, to end the suspense, to rip off the bandaid which was nearly a year in the making. 

First, she checked the gazebo. Empty. As was the bus stop where he often sat reading, waiting to leave for a shift at Shangri-la. But then it seemed so clear. The bridge. Of course. She raced over, biting at her polished nails. Lo and behold, he sat with a worn book in his hand. His legs dangled over the edge, boots nearly skimming the water. The hazy, cloudy evening darkened his form, and a wave of nerves washed over her when she saw him. Her heart was in her throat, but she pushed forward, one foot in front of the other. 

“Jess.”

He looked up from his book as she approached him, tentative footfalls on the old wood. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied, and watched him stand slowly, rigidly. 

He stuffed the novel in his back pocket and had his mouth set in a thin line, arms crossed. Clearing his throat, he watched her shift her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably, gathering the courage to speak. It was odd, seeing her in such a state. On a normal day, she was nothing if not blunt. 

Taking a deep breath, she matched his gaze. “I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean any of it about the next girl and everything. I don’t know where that came from. I just...panicked.”

“I’ll say.”

“Right. And I didn’t mean to. But...Shane’s not my favorite person in the world, but she doesn’t deserve it.”

Jess nodded solemnly. “Guess not.”

Another deep breath, and she continued. “Did you…?”

“I broke up with her, yeah. Despite the vehement protests,” Jess said. He ran a hand over his mouth, and reminded himself not to get his hopes up. Not after so long keeping them down. 

“Okay. Well…” she trailed off, struggling for words. But, eventually, it came to her. The truth, the words spilling from her mind directly to her mouth. “Look, Jess, most of the time, I don’t see the point in dating. I don’t see people who actually care about each other. I see people who are kidding themselves.”

“I know,” he said, a sigh in his words. She could see his shoulders slouch slightly, and he bowed his head a little in defeat, preparing for the words he thought would come next. 

“But that’s most of the time.”

Jess looked up again. 

“Not since...not since you got here. Not when I’m with you.”

A small smile began to grow on his lips and his eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she answered, ringing her hands in front of her anxiously as she spoke. 

Nodding again, he took a few steps forward, until she was close enough to touch, but he kept his arms over his chest. “Okay.”

“Well, don’t overshare, chatty Kathy,” she quipped at his shortness. The smirk lasted only a second on her face before the serious expression she’d been holding returned. “But if we’re gonna do this, I wanna do it. No cop-outs. I want to try. Really try.” Then, after a pause: “What about you?”

The dimple in Jess’s cheek shone as his smile widened. He uncrossed his arms and shrugged as though he were cavalier. “Eleanor, you’re the only person I wanna talk to. You’re the only person I _ like _ . You’re the person I wanna try with.”

Finally, a matching smile bloomed on her face and she let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding in. “You promise?”

“Promise.”

“Well, I’m glad we sorted that out.”

“Me too.”

A momentary pause ensued between them. Joy surged in Jess’s heart, but he suddenly felt nervous, even awkward. Cheeks warming, he wanted to reach out to her. But he couldn’t find it within himself. It didn’t seem real. She didn’t seem real. He almost felt like he needed a moment to regroup. But, then, Ella shifted and grabbed his hand, lacing their fingers together. Thunder sounded overheard, rolling over town. 

“You wanna go somewhere?” she asked.

“Anywhere,” he replied, a smirk on his face, hand relaxing in her grip.

“Well,” she said, leading the way back to town and giving his hand a squeeze, “that narrows it down.”

  
  



	12. Wait to Find the Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the night of their first date, Ella and Jess end up in the emergency room.

For the first time in quite a while, Ella had the morning off, sitting with Rory and Lorelai at the diner’s counter for breakfast instead of standing on the opposite side to serve them. Mid-September, and the sun shone down on Stars Hollow warmly, but the breeze had already turned chilly. Autumn was falling on Connecticut fast. Due to shifts at the diner and the start of school, neither Jess nor Ella had been able to free up enough time for a real date. Of course, each lunch at school Jess bothered to show up to, and every shift at the diner brought them together. But Jess was anxious to truly take her out. He was partially convinced Luke had booked both of them up so much to prevent a date from ever happening, but Jess had argued with him enough to earn them both an early closing on Friday night. They were only scheduled until eight, instead of nine or ten.

Ella had begun feeling excitement and nerves well up inside her, and they only grew as the day approached. She’d assured him she would be paying for half of whatever they were doing, after the first date. She hadn’t gotten him to budge on the first date, though not for lack of trying. He wanted to show her all the upsides of dating, he’d said, like getting to go out for free. Sipping from her giant mug of tea, she felt her eyes flicking over to the checkered curtain from which Jess would appear at any moment. It was odd; she’d never had a real relationship, had never had such pleasant tension build within her. 

“Hey, Stevens!” Lorelai exclaimed, breaking Ella’s reverie.

Ella blinked in surprise, exiting the cloud of her thoughts back to reality. “Sorry, sorry. What’s up?”

Lorelai snorted and rolled her eyes. “My god, you two are like puppies. Waiting to see lover boy this morning?”

Blushing, Ella let out an unconvincing scoff. “Lover boy wishes. Just got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Like what your kids will look like?” Rory chimed in teasingly.

Ella groaned. “You guys keep this up, you’ll never be graced with my presence for breakfast again. And I’ll wait extra long to serve you your coffee tomorrow.”

Both Gilmore women narrowed their eyes at her. 

“You wouldn’t dare,” Lorelai wagered. 

“Try me,” Ella said, winking and taking another sip. 

Luke ambled back over, having just delivered an order to a table by the front window. He’d caught the last bit of their conversation, stance grumpy and curmudgeonly as always when he stood in front of the three of them again. “You should see those two during shifts together. It’s like I’m not even here.”

“A hostile work environment, huh?” Lorelai asked, feigning sympathy. 

Again, Ella rolled her eyes. She knew neither Luke nor Lorelai had yet warmed up to the idea of the two of them being together. She knew they feared her being corrupted, but she was confident enough in the head atop her own shoulders. Matters of the heart could always be handled. 

“Yeah, whatever. You’ll be spared the agony for a couple hours tonight, though. I’ve got some stuff to pick up from my aunt in New Britain. I’ll be here around six.”

Luke nodded. “At least  _ some _ semblance of peace will be restored.”

Ella gave a doubtful look. “I wouldn’t speak too soon. Jess’ll still be here, after all.”

Right on cue, Jess trudged down the stairs and emerged from the curtain, rubbing a tired eye with the palm of his hand. A smirk crossed his features at the sight of Ella, though he was acutely aware of all the others witnessing the interaction. 

“Hi,” he said, nodding a little at her. 

“Hi,” Ella answered, smiling shyly.

“Ah, speak of the Satan,” Lorelai said. 

Jess didn’t give more than a momentary glance Lorelai’s way before going to grab a coffee to-go and a donut from under one of the glass domes. 

“That’s not the saying, mom,” Rory piped up, raising an eyebrow at Lorelai.

Lorelai nodded over her coffee. “I know. But I think it fits him better. A little more umph, y’know?”

. . .

A rag thrown over her shoulder, Ella hummed under her breath and tried to fight the smile threatening to brighten her face. It was only seven-thirty, after all. She could wait another half hour to truly feel the excitement. Luke would surely scold her if she was too giddy as they closed up, and she wanted to get through the night without being yelled at for a lack of professionalism. The boss had been in a worse mood than usual lately, and Ella sensed it was not entirely due to her and Jess’s new relationship. Blondie lyrics flew from her mouth in a happy whisper as she stacked the chairs on the cleaned tabletops. She could hear the sloshing of water and clinking of plates from the back, Jess on dish duty. Luke was restocking some items in the back. She bounced a little on her heels as she walked, weaving through the tables. Before work, she’d been able to see her aunt, going to fetch the items she’d left over the summer but kept forgetting to pick up. It brightened her mood even more. She pushed up the sleeves of her black shirt as she kept working, smoothing her denim mini-skirt with anxious hands. 

“I gotta go to Doose’s for a few things,” Luke announced as he exited the stock room. “Be back in about thirty minutes, alright?”

“Sure. I’ll manage,” Ella nodded, throwing him a good-natured smile.

Luke snorted a chuckle. “Just don’t let Jess burn the place down.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Not more than five minutes later, Ella was almost finished with the front of house work. Supplies were placed in proper cubbies behind the counter, menus were wiped off, leftover pastries put away. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she put her hands on her hips and racked her brain to make sure there was no task she had forgotten. 

“Ow! Dammit!” she heard Jess exclaim from the back, hissing in pain. 

Ella furrowed her brows and rushed to the back. “What’s wrong?”

He stood before the steaming vat of dishes, water tinged pink, gripping his left hand firmly in his right. Blood was leaking through his fingers and down his arms, leaving thin, reddish streaks. 

“I was reaching in the dish pit and I guess I hit a rogue knife and now here we are!” Jess recounted angrily, through gritted teeth. 

As Ella stepped forward, she reached for his injury and he flinched out of instinct. 

“Just let me see,” she said softly, and he slowly took his right hand away. 

With a gentle touch, she grabbed his left wrist and assessed the cut. There was a deep slice from the base of his pinky down halfway to his wrist. Ella knew the knife which had cut him was almost positively from the kitchen, not one of the dull patron’s utensils. Clicking her tongue in exasperation, she reached above the dish pit to grab a clean towel and pressed it to the wound. He held it there when she took her hands away. 

Sighing through her nose, she took him by the shoulder and began guiding him to the front. “That’s gonna need stitches. C’mon, I came from New Britain so I’ve got my car. We’re going to the emergency room.”

Jess’s eyes widened and his pale forehead shone with a light sheen of sweat. “ _ What? _ No! Let’s just wait until Luke gets back. He can use superglue or something.”

Scribbling a note on the pad from the apron she still wore, she snorted doubtfully. “Wait for Luke while you bleed out? Yeah, right. That’s a deep fucking cut, Jess. Let’s go now. He’ll see the note when he gets back and he’ll meet us there.”

“It’s not even that bad,” he argued, pressing harder on his left hand in hopes of making the bleeding stop.

She scoffed. “Okay, tough guy. Let’s just go for my own peace of mind then, alright?”

While speaking, she’d slammed the frantic note down on the counter and gone to the hanger near the door to grab her bag and keys. Inside, her heart was pounding in her chest and thumping in her ears, but she tried to exhibit outward calm. Color had drained from Jess’s face, and the redness seeped through the white towel he held to the cut.

“But what about tonight?” Jess asked after a moment, disappointment in his voice. 

Ella offered a small smile, bringing a hand to his back and leading him out the door. She made sure to lock it as they rushed out. “We’ll do it next weekend, okay? I’ll enjoy dating a lot more if my date is alive.”

“I’m sorry,” he grumbled, slightly dazed as he followed her onto the sidewalk and to her car, parked right behind Luke’s truck outside the front door of the diner.

“Don’t apologize, Jess,” she said, going around to the driver’s side and unlocking it. 

Before Jess could attempt to open his door, Ella ran back around and opened it for him. He nodded at her gratefully, though a blush heated up his cheeks as he sat down. As she shut her creaky driver’s side door with a  _ slam! _ and started up the sputtering engine, Jess managed to click his seatbelt into its place on his own, despite Ella’s attempts to help him.

“For the record, I didn’t mean I was sorry about this,” he said, gesturing to his bloody hand. “I meant I was sorry about how much I’m gonna make fun of this car. What the hell are you doing driving a  _ station wagon _ , Stevens?”

She laughed as she pulled away from Luke’s, doing her best to remain under the speed limit and not run the stop signs. 

. . .

Ammonia and disinfectant burned her nostrils, and she had to blink back the wateriness in her eyes. The walls of the small hospital room were a blinding white, and the flickering of the fluorescent lights was almost nauseating. But Ella kept a calm tone as she ran her hand up and down over Jess’s back, sitting next to him on the exam table, which was covered with crinkling white paper. 

The nurse cleaned out Jess’s cut with freezing cold water, and Jess tried his best to not let the pain cross his features. Instead, he listened to Ella, distracting him with random rankings of songs. He disagreed with her judgement frequently, starting weak but playful arguments. When the cut was cleaned, the nurse, a man with a tired face and kind blue eyes, set Jess’s hand palm-up on a small silver table before them, sterile tools set around it. The nurse interrupted their conversation when he brought out a syringe, and explained he would have to give Jess shots  _ inside  _ the cut in order to numb it before sewing it up. Jess nodded, gulping as he straightened up slightly and prepared himself. He blew out a long breath and his face paled even more. 

Ella, sitting to his right, grabbed his uninjured hand and squeezed. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he assured her, trying to hide his grimace at the thought of what was about to happen. “I just...I don’t like needles.”

“Oh. Well, don’t look at it,” Ella said, trying to calm him as she glanced down at his hand, into which the nurse was about to stick the syringe filled with a numbing agent. “I guess that means matching tattoos are out of the question, huh?”

“I’d say so,” he replied, chuckling. 

“Damn,” she shook her head, teasing. “I guess I won’t end up with Jack Nicholson’s face on my ass after all.”

Jess grunted a little and squeezed her hand tighter as the nurse gave him the first shot. Using her free hand to rub circles over his back again, she gave him a quick peck on the cheek to reassure him. In spite of himself, Jess couldn’t help but lean into her touch. 

. . .

The process was painful but quick, and Ella managed to keep Jess’s muted laughter going through the whole thing. Jess didn’t think it was possible to smile with a curved needle stitching up his flesh. And while the numbing had been upsetting in its own way, he could barely feel the actual sewing. Ella’s thin hand drew rhythmic circles on his back, and the nurse was just snipping up the thread by the time Luke ran into the room. Other than his baseball cap sitting slightly askew and the frantic look in his eyes, he’d maintained his gruff, stoic mask. 

“Nice of you to show, Uncle Luke,” Jess drawled flatly, the nurse winding white gauze around his hand. 

Luke frowned at him, and was about to retort, but the nurse piped in to instruct Jess not to get the wound wet and to come back in a few days to get the stitches pulled out. Nodding in thanks and understanding, Jess told the man he was good to go. Then, there were three. And Luke stood with his hands on his hips and stared the two of them down. Even after a few weeks, it was still unnerving to see their hands clasped together. 

Sighing through his nose, Luke cleared his throat and tried to keep calm. “Why didn’t you come over and get me before driving all the way out here?”

“I didn’t want Jess to die inside the diner. I hear it brings down retail costs,” she said defensively.

Jess snorted. 

Luke rolled his eyes but nodded, could see the panic still painted on her face. He crossed his arms over his chest and stepped towards them. There was a long, awkward silence before he finally spoke. “Alright. I’m sorry. Thanks for...driving.”

Ella nodded in earnest. “You’re welcome.”

“But you can go home, alright? I still have some paperwork and stuff to fill out,” Luke said tiredly.

Nodding again, Ella cast a glance at Jess. He flexed his injured hand once or twice, testing it out. 

“Don’t worry, Stevens. I’m good,” he said, catching the worry in her face. “At least I’ll get off dish pit for a little while.”

“That’s true,” she said. “Wait to find the silver lining, Mr. Sunshine.”

Jess scoffed. “Whatever, Daria.”

“Ugh, it’s sickening,” Luke groaned, rolling his eyes at the interaction. 

Ella snickered, shaking her head slightly as she stood up. “I’ll see you later, Mariano.”

“Seems that way. Just drive a little slower on the way home, huh?” he scolded, looking over to speak to Luke. “Speed Racer over here couldn’t stay less than twenty over the limit.”

“Traitor,” she shot back, smirking. “You should get them to give you a sticker, kid. You were very brave.”

Jess feigned a glare and was about to retort, but she pecked his lips instead and gave his shoulder a final squeeze. Ella grabbed her bag and made for the hallway.

As she passed Luke, she gave a joking salute. “Happy to be of service, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. “Tomorrow morning, okay?”

“I’ll be there.”

. . .

Her shift, a double, passed little by little. The hands of her watch seemed to slow down each time she took a peek, torturous, glacial ticking. Luke had his hands full with Caesar at a doctor’s appointment in the morning and Jess with the day off. The extra work helped the day go by, if nothing else. She’d asked after Jess, and Luke said only that he was out. It made Ella all but laugh, biting back a smirk as she thought of Jess rushing out in the morning with a Walmart vest hidden somewhere on his person. Shangri-la, indeed. She knew he had to be back at some point, though, and had asked to help close, get a little overtime. Luke never refused her for overtime. Especially not after the period following her mother’s death when the diner’s leftovers had been pretty much the only thing keeping her household afloat. 

On her lunch break, she’d skipped the meal and instead made trips to both the video store and the makeshift movie house. Kirk somehow was in charge of both places for the day, and it had taken almost all of her patience to negotiate favors with him. She’d promised to make three of her rhubarb pies for the diner the next weekend. Everyone in town hated rhubarb except Kirk. 

The evening brought rain, and it made Ella feel cozy as she closed up the diner. Luke was back dealing with the dishes, what with Jess down for the count. Caesar hummed some eighties song while he cleaned the kitchen, but somehow managed to leave early despite the time and energy his closing dance moves took up. Ella was almost finished with everything, nothing left but to sweep up, by nine. She was almost worried Jess wouldn’t return and her plan would fall through, but he ran over from the bus stop at five past nine. His leather jacket was slick with rainwater and his hair was dripping, but his stitched hand was dry in his pocket and he still cracked a smile when he saw Ella. 

“You should buy an umbrella,” she said, scrunching up her nose as she ran a hand through his wet locks. 

Jess only shrugged. “I like to live dangerously.”

“I’ve noticed. How’s your hand?” she asked, resuming her work on the floor while Jess took a seat at a stool by the counter. 

Again, the nonchalant shrug. “Won’t be modelling bracelets any time soon, but I’ll live.”

“Glad to hear it,” she said, then went over and placed the broom in the corner near the stockroom where it belonged. She couldn’t hide her smile; she loved both giving and receiving surprises. “So. Got any plans tonight?”

“Thought I’d crack the books,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. “Geometry, American History, really work on that ol’ GPA.”

Ella rolled her eyes, then came over in front of him. He laced his arms around her waist. With the customers all gone, Ella felt more comfortable with PDA. “Be careful, one of these days someone’s gonna take you seriously and you’ll have to make good on your word.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Anytime,” she quipped. “Anyway, I thought we should do our ‘official date’ tonight, instead of next weekend.”

Jess rolled his eyes at her air-quotes, and sighed through his nose. “It’s past nine in Stars Hollow. Nothing’s open.”

She feigned deep thought. “I think ‘nothing’ is far too absolute a term. You’d be surprised.”

“Oh, would I?” he teased, eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, Mariano, I think you would.”

. . .

Hands entwined, Jess and Ella ran down Main Street towards the movie house, only partially shielded by store awnings. She had refused to tell him exactly what was going on, only that he better be hungry for popcorn. By the time they made it in through the front door, Ella’s long hair, tied half-up, half-down, was frizzy and damp. But her cheeks were rosy and her smile was wide. The night had cooled down, and the heat in the movie house was welcome. Immediately, she shed her coat and hung it on the hook by the door. Jess followed, then trailed behind her as she made her way over to the ancient popcorn machine. There was one solitary bucket, kept warm in the center. Kirk stood beside it, looking stoic with his work vest, hands clasped in front of each other. 

“Evening, patrons,” he said in a clipped tone, handing her the bucket. 

Ella nodded, smirking. “Evening, Kirk. You can call us by our names.”

Kirk shook his head slightly, refusing to make direct eye contact. “Professionalism is always a top priority at the Stars Hollow Movie House, ma’am.”

“This isn’t even a real movie house and I bribed you with pie to do this showing,” Ella retorted.

Jess scoffed, smirking widely. 

Sighing, Kirk finally met her eyes and his shoulders dropped in disappointment. “Ella, I’m an employee. I take  _ all _ my jobs very seriously. I’m asking you to respect that.”

She bit back her smile and raised a hand in surrender. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Thank you for doing this. You’ll have your pie by next weekend.”

Kirk swallowed dryly, then returned to his solemn stance, offering nothing more. Jess cast Ella a suspicious glance, but she only took his uninjured hand again and led him to the red couch at the front of the room, nearest the projector screen. As soon as they sat down, the lights dimmed and they could hear Kirk booting up the projector. 

“You paid him in pie?” he asked. 

“It’s the universal currency.”

“I was gonna pay for our first date,” he argued, pouting slightly.

She shrugged. “Well, you can’t always get what you want, as the Stones would say.”

“Next time?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes, Jess, if it’ll make you happy. Next time.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, jackass,” she replied, rolling her eyes at his stubbornness. 

He let his eyes roam over the movie house, a place he didn’t remember ever stepping foot in. Dusty bookshelves flanked either side of the large screen. The air smelled like old, weathered pages and the buttery popcorn in the bucket at Ella’s side. Jess wasn’t sure, but he thought he could hear the heavy rain on the tin roof above. He wondered what the building had originally functioned as, considering it looked just like a suburban cottage. Ella’s hand in his, he felt almost comfortable enough to fall asleep on the huge red couch, despite his excited nerves and wet hair and bandaged hand. 

“Okay, Stevens, the suspense is killing me,” Jess said after a pause, gesturing to the screen. 

A mischievous grin crossed her face and she planted a kiss on his cold cheek. 

“Since last night you had a fight with a knife, not to be confused with a knife fight,” she teased, ignoring the playful nudge Jess gave her with his elbow, “I figured having a private screening of one of Cameron Crowe’s masterpieces might make you feel better.”

Almost rendered speechless for a moment, Jess felt his heart flutter in his chest. A small, sincere smile crossed his face. “Well,  _ Almost Famous _ is the best medicine for pretty much every ailment.”

She nodded, conspiratorial. “I whole-heartedly agree. It’s second only to Stephen King.”

Jess sighed through his nose, shaking his head. “You were so close to sounding refined.”

She snorted. “Hypocrite.”

As the bluish light of the projection came on the screen, the familiar music started and warmed Jess’s heart more than he would ever outwardly admit. They faced the movie, and spoke in hushed tones. He hoped the darkness would conceal his blush.

“Thank you, Eleanor, you didn’t have to do this,” he said, almost shyly.

“I wanted to.”

He looked over at her, and could see the image reflected in her hazel eyes. Bringing a hand to her cheek, gently turning her head, he pressed his lips to hers and smiled into the kiss.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback is much appreciated!


	13. Eardrum Torture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Application season takes its toll on Ella.

Four days. She had four days left until the applications were due, and she was about ready to rip out her hair. A Wednesday evening brought with it October wind and thick clouds. Though she had the night off, she sat wringing her hands over a scattered pile of papers at a corner table in the diner. It had been danish day, Luke rushing around to accommodate the breakfast and afternoon crowds, and the restaurant was equally packed at dinner. Ella raked her hands through her messy hair, tying it up in a ponytail and blowing loose strands from her eyes. Her nails were bitten down and she had dark circles under her eyes. The only solace was her knowing the torture would soon end. Envelopes were addressed, the stamps were bought, the essays were written, but she couldn’t manage to feel as though the applications were finished. 

In all honesty, she knew there was no real reason for all the nerves. It wasn’t as though any of the colleges she was applying to were her dream schools. Financial aid could do some help, but it was simply fruitless to spend application fees on Berkley when she knew she would never be able to go anyway. Instead, the state schools and community colleges which made up her list were modest and affordable. And her father and Fiona were glad to have her able to live at home. No one would have to pick up her chores, and they could save for the wedding. 

And she couldn’t bring herself to be angry with them. Disappointment was there, but she knew it was simply realistic. They couldn’t pay for the schools, and they didn’t want her to be buried in debt for the rest of her life. She could appreciate that, especially when she was likely to end up with a degree in something she wasn’t particularly passionate about. What could one do with an art degree anyway? She would settle for something stable, in business or economics, instead of starving for her hopeless dreams. Blowing out a breath, she tried to wake herself up by widening her eyes as she picked up an essay about a significant person in her life to read over for the third time. She’d actually had to write it twice, considering how illegible her cursive was in the first draft. 

Rapping his knuckles on the table, Jess sat down across from her with a smirk and a plate in his hand. “Sweepin’ those chimneys nonstop, huh?”

Ella rolled her eyes. “Bite me.”

“You’re gonna give yourself a headache,” he said, holding the plate with the turkey sandwich out before her. It was nearly closing, and she still hadn’t ordered any dinner. He took the liberty of making something for her. Lately, she’d been forgetting to eat altogether. 

“Well, we all have to make sacrifices sometimes,” she muttered flatly. 

“Look,” Jess sighed, “just take a break for a second, alright? I’ll read it for you if you want.”

She cleared her throat in annoyance, then finally tossed a glance his way. Before she could help it, her stomach growled at the sight of the sandwich. Classic turkey was her favorite. Jess smirked, but said nothing. Ella narrowed her eyes at him and stared him down for a moment, then finally relented. They did a quick exchange, Jess with her paper and Ella with the ceramic plate. 

“Thank you,” she said tiredly. 

A smug smile painted his face as he began reading the essay. “You’re welcome, Stevens.”

As she ate, he read, brows furrowed in concentration. His face was indecipherable, and her stomach rolled with anxiety at him looking over her work. The sandwich was gone almost instantly, and she hadn’t realized how hungry she was. Luke was making preparations for closing as the last few customers finished up their dinners. The last pot of coffee was empty, and the twinkling lights in the square illuminated the dim evening in a cozy whitish-yellow glow. She licked mayo from her thumb and wiped her mouth with a napkin, finished eating, just as Jess turned the paper over and set it back down on the table.

“So?” she asked, arms crossed over her t-shirt and an expectant look on her face. 

Jess nodded. “It’s really good, Eleanor. I like it. Very descriptive. I can tell you’ve got a James Joyce obsession.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Shut up, jackass.”

“But, really, I love it,” Jess said.

“Thank you,” she said humbly, averting her gaze with a shy blush still present.

“Did she really know June Carter Cash?” he asked. 

A wide smile crossed Ella’s face. The essay, though monumentally stressful to finish, had been a joy to write. Instead of offering a more melancholy tale about her mother, she’d chosen her grandmother. Whose necklace she wore, who she had a framed photo of on her desk, and who taught her how to persevere. Though she had died before Ella was ten, the woman was still so present in her memory. Her mother had been a tender rose, but her grandmother had been a giant sunflower, standing tall. A force of nature. 

“Yeah. They sang at the same club a couple times. My grandma’s stories could give Miss Patty’s a run for their money.”

“High standards to meet.”

“That they are,” she said fondly, taking the essay and straightening a stack of papers in front of her. Then, she looked back up at him with a teasing eye. In spite of herself, she picked up the essay and began skimming it again. “Aren’t you on the clock? Slacking off, are we, Mariano?”

He scoffed. “Luke let me off early, Caesar’s helping close. Time off for good behavior.”

“Not likely,” she teased, snorting a laugh, then brought her fist to cover her mouth as a yawn overtook her. 

Jess felt a pang of sympathy, watching her regain her composure and blink back a watery shine from her reddish eyes. She looked positively exhausted, and he hadn’t seen her without a pencil or an essay in her hand in what felt like forever. Even when she was behind the counter at the diner; Luke was being especially lenient for application season. 

“You wanna hang out upstairs? I think there’s some Alfred Hitchcock on tonight.”

She only raised an eyebrow, gesturing down to her applications and other schoolwork. 

“How many days do you have left?”

“Four.”

“And you have them all finished?”

“More or less.”

“And you can’t take a break from rereading to hang out with your boyfriend for one night?”

Ella paused for a moment, and a teasing smirk crossed her face. “ _ Boyfriend? _ ” 

He cleared his throat and a blush crept up his neck, but he maintained the confident facade, smirking back. “Oh, am I not your boyfriend?”

She shrugged. “I guess. Just didn’t know you’d fully committed to the label.”

“Oh, I’m committed.”

“Oh. Okay,” she smiled lightly, the dimple showing in her freckled cheek. “And I’m your girlfriend?”

“I figured. Was I wrong?”

“No. No, you weren’t.”

“Good,” he said shortly, and felt a little squirmy under her teasing gaze. “Now, are we gonna go watch some ‘50s murders or not?”

Ella snorted a laugh at his embarrassment. She looked down at the stack of work doubtfully, then sighed. It was too tempting to resist. Then, she stood up and began clearing up her things. 

. . .

Mid-way through  _ Psycho _ , Jess noticed Ella’s continuous yawning and the way she struggled to keep her hazel gaze on the grayish screen. He could hear Luke closing up down in the diner, and Caesar’s music droning from the radio. But it was cozy, the October night closing in and bringing silence to the chilly town streets. There was an old quilt spread out over their laps, their hands laced together. She cleared her throat and straightened up slightly, trying to look more awake as the onscreen hunt for Marion Crane intensified. Jess sighed and took his hand from hers. Putting an arm around her, he brought her head to his shoulder and she leaned into him tiredly. 

“Oh, I see, you’re doing that thing where you put your arm around me, and then you sneeze and try to grab-”

“Am not,” Jess interjected, laughing. “I should’ve never let you in on my moves.”

Ella giggled. “Right,  _ your _ move.”

“Maybe I invented it. You could never be sure.”

She scoffed, smiling, and shifted to get more comfortable. He pressed a kiss to her hair and leaned back into the old couch. Even still, he looked down at her bitten nails and frowned. 

“You’re gonna get into those schools, y’know,” he said softly.

Ella sighed. “Yeah, I guess there’s a good chance. I don’t want to count on anything.”

“Stevens, you have a four-point-oh. They’re lucky you’re even considering them.”

“And  _ I’m _ lucky they’re cheap.”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth, nodding. “I bet you could still get a scholarship to Berkeley somehow. Or some school in some other city. I mean, you don’t  _ have _ to do anything you don’t wanna do.”

Sleepily, she nodded. “I know, Jess. But I’ll get to live in a city someday. I’ve lived in that house for seventeen years. I can manage a couple more.”

“You could still apply, though. If you wanted,” he said. 

Again, she sighed. “Really, Jess, I’m okay not applying to Berkley. I knew I’d never be able to go, it was just some stupid dream I had when Lane and Rory and I were kids and thinking about which colleges we would end up at.”

“And what rebellious kids you were,” he smirked. 

Ella nudged him with an elbow. “Whatever. Southern Connecticut State is good enough for now. I’ll get some bullshit degree and a decent job, so I can have money and time to really work on my art. Someday.”

Jess hummed in acknowledgement.

“Besides, I don’t wanna leave Adam alone. My dad may be getting better, but it’s not gonna be perfect there overnight,” she explained, ending with a yawn again, behind her hand. 

At that, Jess dropped the subject. He knew she needed sleep, and bringing her little brother into it would lead to a whole other conversation. Besides, it wasn’t his place to say what she should do with her life, no matter how hard it was to watch her settle, like she’d already had to do so many times. 

“Okay,” he said quietly, running a hand up and down her arm. 

Then, after a pause, her husky voice piped up again: “And next year you’re just gonna keep working here? And Walmart?”

“I suppose.”

“You know you’re gonna have to tell Luke about that at some point, right?”

“Well, I’m holding out as long as I can.”

She snorted a laugh. “Good luck with that.”

“Hey, you’re still sworn to secrecy,” he warned playfully.

“Yes. Cross my heart, remember?” she asked, and he nodded. Looking up to see his face in the low light, she pursed her lips. “What would you do, Jess? If you weren’t Walmart’s best employee. If you could do anything you wanted?”

There was a long silence as he thought, and she almost figured he hadn’t heard her. But then, he cast his eyes down, the movie momentarily forgotten. 

“I don’t know. Maybe...write something.”

“Something?”

“Yeah. A novel. Short stories. Something. Or find some job where I could just read all day. Either one would work.”

A smile crossed her lips, turning the idea over and over in her mind. “Hm. I could see it. ‘A novel by Jess Mariano.’”

He only shrugged.

“No, really, Jess, that’d be awesome. You should do it,” she said, brightening, sitting up a little and gaining passion as she spoke, gesturing with her nail-bitten hands. 

He scoffed, brows furrowing. “On what? That brand new computer I own?”

She rolled her eyes, then lowered her head back down to his shoulder. “I don’t know. You’re too smart for your own good, Mariano. I’m sure you could find a way. I just think it’d be great. If I’m owning my narrative, you have to own yours.”

Shaking his head at both her stubbornness and the memory of her spontaneous trip to New York, he kissed the crown of her head again. “Maybe.”

“Okay, chatty Kathy,” she said, scoffing at his nonchalance.

Within minutes, she had fallen asleep on his shoulder, leaving Jess to watch the reveal of Norman Bates’s mother and think on his incredibly ambiguous future.

. . .

Sunday afternoon customers flooded the diner. For once, Jess had broken a sweat serving them, a towel flung over his shoulder and an apron around his hips. Luke barked out directives as Caesar kept the grill sizzling, pancakes and bacon and patty melts, even as the afternoon crept in. Trudging around, Jess’s boots were heavy on his feet. Ella had the day off, and she hadn’t made an appearance. Usually, he would take breaks to flirt with her, trade her a book or two, as she poured over her homework. Instead, a random, loud family occupied her corner. 

Eventually, he saw her blonde figure rushing down past the front window. Her cheeks were flushed scarlet as she came inside, her bag heavy on her shoulder. Luke only nodded and grunted at her, and she responded with an almost identical greeting. It became clearer to Jess every day why Luke and Ella had such a benevolent boss-employee dynamic. He held the steaming coffee pot in his hand as he came over to her. She hung the heavy shoulder bag and tattered peacoat by the door. 

“Hey, your usual table isn’t open but if you wanna wait at the counter-”

“Can I borrow some angry music?” she interjected, a crease between her brows. 

“What?”

She huffed and spoke with her hands. “I wanted to listen to some angry music but I only have sad shit, and I wanted to borrow some from Lane, but she wasn’t at her house, so I came over here because you have all that punk upstairs.”

“Um...yeah,” he said, throwing a glance back at the staircase. “It’s kinda swamped here but if you wanna go use the boombox upstairs?”

“Yeah, okay, thanks,” she nodded, breathless from her rant. Ella gave him a quick peck and, in a moment, was bounding up the stairs. 

He stepped back slightly in surprise, eyes lingering on the checkered curtain she had disappeared behind. On a normal day, she would never kiss him on the lips in the middle of the busy diner. But on a normal day, her eyes weren’t so stormy. 

. . .

Finally, mercifully, Luke let Jess take a thirty-minute break. The Distillers were turned up to head-splitting level as he entered the apartment, though they could only barely hear it downstairs under the customers’ chatter. Ella sat with one leg crossed over the other at the kitchen table, her sketchbook in front of her. She shaded a drawing furiously, not looking up as he came in. Sighing slightly, brows furrowed, he went over and turned the volume down halfway. Still, Ella gave no response. Crossing his arms over his chest, he came over beside her to regard the drawing.

Jess scoffed as he glanced down at the page. The dark lines and shading clouded the drawing of a screaming woman. Wilting flowers surrounding the face, and there was fire drawn in the figure’s pupils.

“Jesus. You draw some scary shit when you’re upset.”

“I’m not upset,” she said shortly, not meeting his gaze.

“Y’know there’s a reason you’re an artist not an actress, right?” he drawled.

Ella rolled her eyes, stuffing her sketchbook into her bag and gathering herself up. Blowing out a long breath, she made to brush past him. “I’ll call you later.”

“Hey, where’s the fire?” he asked, his voice earnest as he placed a hand on her arm to stop her. “What’s the matter, Stevens?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? Then what’s with the eardrum torture?”

Swallowing dryly, she scowled at him but said nothing.

“C’mon, what’s the problem?”

Sighing again through her nose, she shrugged off his hand. “Just back off, Jess, for fuck’s sake.”

Without another word, she stormed down the stairs and left him confused. He stood with his eyes dark, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, the bass vibrations of the music thudding in his chest. 

. . .

A dusky, golden October evening fell on Stars Hollow. Jess debated just staying in after his shift ended, brooding over the Bronte book Ella had loaned him, eventually falling asleep with furious thoughts cycling through his mind. Instead, he donned his leather jacket and turned down the Gilmores’ street. The gravel crunched under his shoes and he felt his heartbeat speed up as he neared the familiar house. Tall trees lined the sides of the road, and the crisp wind rustled the orangey leaves, falling around him and in his hair. He sighed heavily, taking a crunchy leaf from the top of his head and crushed it in his hand. In all the time he’d known Ella, he’d only seen her quite so angry a couple of times. Usually, it was just a bite in her voice and the sharpness of her tongue. Storming out was a move Jess expected far more from himself than from her. 

He knocked on the front door, nerves building in his stomach. And his expression dropped just a touch when it was Lorelai who came to the door, slightly out of breath and less than thrilled to see him. 

“Hi,” he began lamely, glancing behind her and trying to listen for other voices. “Is Eleanor here?”

Breathing out a short sigh, Lorelai put her hands on her hips. “No.”

“...do you know where she is?” Jess asked.

“She’s at the charity book sale at the high school with Rory and Lane,” she said, after a moment of debate over just slamming the door shut in his face. And, before he could run off, she added: “And I wouldn’t go find her.”

“Why not?”

Lorelai looked down at her shoes, crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the doorframe. “Look, Bender, I know you fancy yourself her knight in shining leather-”

“Hey-”

She raised a hand to stop him, and continued with a tense tone in her voice. “But she went through a lot before you ever got here. She’s still going through a lot now. And she doesn’t need you butting in and complicating all her complications.”

“I just wanted to know what’s wrong,” he explained defensively, mirroring her guarded stance. 

“And it’s not my place to let you know. She’ll tell you when she’s ready,” Lorelai said. “She broke her arm during a dance at Miss Patty’s when she was ten. And do you know how long it took for her to tell anyone how much it hurt?”

He shook his head. 

“ _ Five days. _ Her arm was practically a purple tree trunk by the time they got her to the hospital! And that may’ve been an extreme case, but the point stands,” she said, straightening up and softening her face just a touch. “I think I’ve only seen her cry twice in ten years. She likes to work things out on her own. And she’s just got some communication issues, like someone else I know.”

She gave Jess a pointed look and he averted his gaze self-consciously. 

“I bet Ella’s told you she doesn’t believe in love.”

Sighing heavily, Jess nodded. 

“But we both know that’s not true. She’s cleaned my rain gutters every week for the past few years, just because I don’t like heights. When Rory had the chickenpox, Ella came here everyday after school with a new card or drawing, and stayed over until it got dark out. She always sneaks Lane her new contraband music through this weird window dumbwaiter system they made years ago. When Miss Patty needs a piano player, Ella fills in without pay, no complaints.”

Running a hand over his mouth anxiously, he nodded again. It was times like these when his heart ached for Ella, knowing how both similar and different they were from each other. He dealt with things through anger and trouble, and she dealt with things through guilt and silence. Neither method was healthy, but Ella’s was far less outwardly destructive. 

“Jess, when Ella loves someone, she loves them completely. She  _ trusts _ them completely,” Lorelai continued, eyebrows raised at the young hellion. “She’ll live and die for them. But it takes her  _ years _ to get there. You have to be patient.”

“Alright.”

“And if you hurt her, so help me God-”

“I know. You’ll string me up in town square to set an example?” he interjected, waving a dismissive hand. 

“Something along those lines.”

“Noted. Well, I gotta go,” he said, making to leave. Lorelai only hummed in acknowledgement. Before he stepped off the porch, Jess turned back over his shoulder and muttered out a “Thanks.”

In response, Lorelai gave a tiny smile, and disappeared back into the house. 

. . .

His collar was up against the wind, and Jess had to try three times to light his cigarette. The diner was closed up, lights off. Bluish smoke formed hazy clouds in front of him, obscuring his view of the nearly-deserted town square. The twinkle lights were shining, and a few stray cars rolled past him every now and them, their red brake lights glowing in the darkness. Everyone seemed to be in bed already, at half past nine, in preparation for the week ahead. It made him sad, thinking of how vibrant New York was at this time of night. He wondered what his mother was doing, which boyfriend she was with. And then he scoffed at himself and let her leave his mind, crushing his cigarette out beneath the toe of his boot on the sidewalk. Looking up, he saw Orion’s belt in the autumn sky. He was homesick for the first time in recent memory.

“Hey, tough guy. Thought you kicked the habit?” he heard, and looked over to find Ella, coming from the direction of Lane’s house, arms crossed to keep herself warm. 

He laughed humorlessly. “The addictive personality comes and goes.”

She sighed, leaned against the front window of Luke’s next to him. Keeping a careful distance, she tried and failed to catch his eye. He looked ahead, watching as an RV, presumably a family of tourists, rolled by on the other side of the square. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, running a hand through her blonde waves. Goosebumps formed on her legs beneath her tights. Darkness had brought a harsh breeze. “I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”

“Mm,” Jess hummed, still not meeting her gaze. 

Ella sighed through her nose, looking down at her disintegrating converse. “I just got in a fight with Fiona. She keeps wanting me to call her mom, so we scream at each other, and she cries so I’m the one who ends up apologizing. And then she said she and my dad are trying for another kid.”

His eyebrows shot up, and he finally turned his head to her. 

Clearing her throat, she shot a bitter smirk his way. “I know. When they’re doing so well with the ones they already have, right? Anyway...I left the house and I didn’t know what to do. So, when you saw me earlier, I was just completely in my own head and...I was angry at you for nothing. And you don’t deserve that. I've been so stressed and caught up lately. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said, voice husky. And he took her cold hand in his. She closed her eyes and felt her breath catch in her throat for a moment. Swallowing down her feelings, she took a step closer to him. She hadn’t expected such easy forgiveness. 

“No, it’s not okay. And you don’t have to say it is. I’m just new at this whole thing. I’m not used to...talking about anything, really, let alone everything. Most of the time, even Rory and Lane don’t know too much about what’s going on with me.”

“I know. That’s okay, honey,” he repeated, and she finally let a weak smile across her lips. Jess smiled a small smile back, and hoped she could know what he meant in so few words. As he saw her shoulders relax and surprise shine in her hazel eyes, Lorelai’s words remained in the back of his mind.  _ Patience _ . He could do that. He could wait. Especially when he’d waited for her so long already. 

“Thanks. For…”

“Don’t mention it,” he cut in, bringing an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in to plant a kiss on the top of her head. 

“Really, Jess. I don’t think you realize how nice you really are,” she doubled down, looking him straight in the eye. 

He scoffed and rolled his eyes at the compliment, brushing it off. 

Ella rolled her eyes back at his secret bashfulness and kissed him on the lips. The air was cold, but a warmth began in her stomach and spread throughout her upon feeling his touch. She stood on her tiptoes and he brought a hand to one of her hips. A moment passed between them, but thought popped suddenly into Ella’s head and she pulled away from him.

“Hold on,” she said, turning around to rummage in her bag. Eventually, she pulled out a book with yellowed pages and a black and white cover. As she held it out to him, Jess recognized the face on the front.  _ On Writing  _ by Stephen King. 

Raising a hesitant eyebrow, he took it and immediately turned it over to read the back. 

“I know it’s Stephen King, but I saw it at the charity thing today and if you’re gonna write the great American novel— which you are—I figured you could use a little advice from one of the professionals.”

“Huh,” he chirped, his voice with a surprised lilt.

She smirked. “Trust me. Rory told me lots of her favorite authors swear by it. And since you guys both have similarly questionable tastes...”

Jess shot her a teasing glare. 

“I was going to give it to you for your birthday in a few days, but you let me borrow your angry music and be a jackass to you today. I decided to make it an early present. On your actual birthday, I’ll give you something by an author you  _ don’t _ despise.”

He chuckled a little and turned to her, smiling more genuinely than she expected. Bringing his arms back around her waist, he pulled her in for a tight hug and she could hear a muffled “Thank you” through the kisses he pressed to her cheek. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This was not meant to be so angsty, but here we are. Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is much appreciated!


	14. As in Debbie Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella have a frank discussion, then go to see a live performance of some angry music.

_ **AUTHOR'S NOTE : ** _ Gilmore Girls _ is often a very sex-negative show. There are many examples of the sex-negative narrative through the series, such as when Lorelai implies Paris is “the bad kid” for losing her virginity, or when Lane gets pregnant with twins the first time she has sex with Zach. In “Keg! Max!” Jess tries to pressure Rory into having sex while in a bedroom upstairs during Kyle’s party. In my opinion, that scene seemed a very clumsy (and, honestly, out of character) attempt to convey Jess’s inward situation outwardly without using words. It is a very difficult scene to watch and it is Jess’s worst moment in the whole series by far. With this chapter of my AU, I am in no way trying to trivialize that scene or be an apologist for that kind of behavior. It’s unacceptable in every way. Consent is extremely important, and should be clearly given by everyone involved each time they have sex.  _

_Instead, I wanted to create a more positive representation of teen sex. Sex is a normal part of life, and people should not be shamed for having it. I wanted the conversation between Jess and Eleanor to be realistic and beneficial. And I wanted the morning after to be positive too. I wanted it to be clear that they both gave consent during the initial conversation and right before they actually had sex (because giving consent once **does not** mean giving consent forever). I wanted them to be safe and comfortable. I wanted them to make an effort to communicate with each other. Also, I personally think the show has a detrimental attitude towards virginity, especially considering how much slut-shaming there is, the incident with Paris being only one example. Virginity, in my view, is just a social construct, but that’s a conversation for another time. _

_In my AU, Jess does not pressure anyone into sex, and he never would. It’s monumentally problematic of_ Gilmore Girls _to brush off the incident in “Keg! Max!” the way it does, so I wanted to make sure I addressed it before any sex happened in this story. It’s important to recognize problems in our favorite content and learn from them. So, I hope this chapter sends a better message about teenage sex and consent. And I hope I got my ideas across in this note. Please feel free to message me any time if you are going through something, want to talk, or anything else. I am always here. You can learn more about consent and find resources for sexual assault survivors at https://www.rainn.org/articles/what-is-consent._

Legs crossed, warming both her hands with the to-go cup of tea from Luke’s, Ella listened intently as Lane gushed about Dave Rygalski. They sat in the gazebo, school bags forgotten on the old wood below them. Stars Hollow High was finally closed for fall break, a whole week off to celebrate Thanksgiving and prepare for the odd, torturous month until the sweet release of winter break as well. Lane was thinking out loud, trying to formulate a plan to get Dave to her house on Thanksgiving. Schemes involving classical Biblical guitar and stuffy outfits were being discussed when Rory finally arrived from the bus stop, binders in her hand and her Chilton skirt hitting her knees as she walked. 

“Ah, if it isn’t my favorite Catholic school girl!” Ella called as Rory ascended the steps. 

Rory scoffed. “It wasn’t funny two years ago, and it’s not funny now.”

“Humor is subjective.”

“Not in this case. You’ve reached an objective lack of humor.”

“Hey, not even Rory Gilmore can bend such universal rules,” Ella shrugged, smirking. Rolling her eyes, Rory plopped down between her two friends and blew out a tired breath, a tight squeeze on the small bench.

“Man, that boyfriend of yours is a bad influence. The heightened snark makes the two of you such a sorry lot,” Lane said.

Ella’s wicked grin only widened. “The snark existed well before Jess came along. I think it’s more my old age that’s making me bitter.” She paused, taking another sip. “Really Rory, I could paint your shoes. Your mom could hem your skirt. I think it’s time to make waves in the antiquated dress code community.”

“Expulsion’s just what I need six months before graduation,” Rory grumbled, digging around in her yellow backpack for her pager. There were fourteen messages from Dean. She let out a frustrated growl.

“Dirk Squarejaw again?” Ella asked, sympathetic. 

Nodding, Rory sighed and put her head to Ella’s shoulder. “He just won’t shut up about that kiss with Tristan. I swear this all would’ve been easier if he’d ended up actually going to military school.”

“What do you say we throw off our men and just ride off together, Thelma?” Ella said, uttering a dreamy exhale. 

“If only, Louise.”

Clearing her throat, Lane nudged Rory with an elbow and raised offended eyebrows.

“ _ And _ , once you snag Dave, you’ll be part of the feminist killjoy club, too,” Ella said pointedly, smirking.

“You’ve been listening to too much Bikini Kill,” Lane said, cracking a smile.

“No such thing,” Ella retorted. “Revolution girl style now, baby.”

The three of them descended into a sprawling conversation of Thanksgiving plans, along with a rather colorful anecdote involving Rory’s Chilton frenemy Paris. No matter how exuberant she sounded, Ella couldn’t help but think she would get along well with Ms. Geller. A pleasant tingling had spread within Ella since leaving school, the bell finally chiming in seventh period trigonometry. The feeling always came along with breaks, and it was nice to be with Rory and Lane, chatting in their familiar, breezy way. Everyone was growing older, getting busier, getting boyfriends; it was rare the three musketeers got a true moment to themselves. Eventually, Lane had to go to Bible study, eager to get in good graces with her mother, to allow Dave to provide a musical holiday accompaniment. 

Autumn brought early nightfall, and the light was just beginning to wane when a decrepit AMC Ambassador screeched to a halt in front of the diner. And Ella found herself not even surprised when Jess stepped out of the driver’s side, the keyring around his finger. A smirk crossed her lips and she scoffed a little, looking over at Rory, who shot her a suspicious glance. 

“He’s back behind the wheel, huh?” Rory asked.

Ella’s face fell a little. “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry-”

Waving a dismissive hand, Rory only shrugged. “That accident wasn’t his fault.”

Letting out a breath of relief, Ella gave Rory a side-hug and another grin. “You’re the best, Gilmore.”

“Second only to you, Ella.”

Glancing over at Jess, Ella rolled her eyes. He leaned against the car, gazing at her. His hands shoved in his pockets, hair gelled up, a leather jacket over his Clash t-shirt. A blush almost rose to her face at the sight of him, but she bit the inside of her cheek and smirked wider instead. 

“You need something, Mariano?” she called smugly, and Rory chuckled at her side. 

Jess shrugged. “Just didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Oh, how polite of you,” she shot back, then looked over at Rory in askance. The brunette nodded and gave her one last hug.

“Lunch tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Ella replied, gathering up her stuff and shaking her head in disbelief as she approached the car, and the boy next to it. “Where’d you get the rust bucket, Mariano?”

“Whatever, soccer mom,” he retorted.

She narrowed her eyes at the insult to her station wagon. “You’re on thin ice. Where’d you even find this?”

“Gypsy sold it to me. Not so pretty, but I got a good deal.”

She nodded, placing her hands on the back of his neck and lacing her fingers together. His arms came to rest around her waist. Ella glanced back around him to the car. “Ah, I wouldn’t write her off too quick. She’s got good bones.”

“Wait to look on the bright side, blondie,” he said, kissing her cheek.

“As in my hair or as in Debbie Harry?” she asked, expectant. “There  _ is _ a right answer.”

Jess snorted. “Debbie Harry. How could you even ask?”

“Just checking,” she smiled, pressing her lips to his. For a moment, she was caught up, and the kiss deepened. But then she remembered they were still standing in the center of town, and she pulled away as her cheeks heated up.

Jess chuckled at her blush as she took a step back and cleared her throat, running a hand through her loose hair self-consciously. 

“Shut up, James Dean” she warned playfully, narrowing her eyes. “With this car? I think you’ve reached caricature status in public opinion.”

“Don’t type-cast me.”

She continued despite his mock defense, ruffling his gelled mess of waves. “You’ve even got the hair to match.”

Rolling his eyes, he swatted her hand away and pouted, trying to fix his look. “Just for that, I’m not letting you pick the music. And I’m not telling you what we’re doing for our surprise date tomorrow night.”

“What? I wasn’t aware the stakes were so high!”

Jess rolled his eyes again.

Before she could do any more damage to his cool exterior, he retreated back into his driver’s seat. Laughing wickedly, she came around to the passenger side and threw her bag in the back. 

“I think it’d be perfectly fine for the date  _ not  _ to be a surprise. Where are we going?” she asked, hoping to lure it out of him.

“Somewhere,” he replied flatly, not phased. 

Smiling wider at his secrecy, she threw a glance at the diner over her shoulder as he rolled away from town center. Punk blasted through the radio, and she turned it down just slightly so they could hear each other. Jess shot her a teasing glare, but said nothing about it. 

“Y’know,” she said, “I’ve worked at Luke’s for three years and in all that time combined I didn’t make enough money to buy a car.”

“And what are you implying?” he asked, feigning innocence.

Ella only scoffed, taking his free hand in hers. She could feel the scar, where they’d pulled out the stitches.

. . .

Nowhere. It had been a long drive to nowhere in his car. But, Ella supposed, nowhere could be a kind of somewhere, anywhere. Eventually, though, they’d made it to Hartford and Jess turned back. The frigid sky was darkening to a deep, late autumn blue, and Luke was adding him to a Saturday night at the diner every time he came home past midnight. Upon arriving back in Stars Hollow, it was around ten, the shops were closed, but Jess didn’t want their time to end. Away from town, he felt lighter, easier. Everyone wasn’t watching him. Ella wasn’t the doe-eyed princess like Rory, and she didn’t have overbearing parents like Lane, but the townspeople still looked at him with plenty suspicious eyes when they walked hand-in-hand out in public. 

Instead of Luke’s, where watchful figures persisted, they landed in Ella’s bedroom. He felt his muscles relax at the scent of lavender, sitting on her bed and leaning his back against the muraled wall. She laid next to him, shoes off but still fully clothed, atop the knit blanket. Joni Mitchell played a mournful tune over her turntable. Her candles were alight, and Jess would have felt sleepy if it weren’t for the book in his hands. Jess devoured  _ A Tree Grows in Brooklyn _ , another gloomy tale (shocking) Ella had given him. She said she always read it around Christmastime, and he was beginning to see at least once reason for her Grinchy tendencies. And Ella held  _ Anna Karenina _ in front of her. It was not her first foray into the Russians, but she had never been too thrilled with them. Jess seemed to believe this one would win her over. A few chapters in, and she doubted it. 

“Jess?” she asked as the clock ticked nearer to eleven. 

“Hm?” 

“Are we gonna have sex?”

Choking for a second in surprise, Jess cleared his throat. He scoffed out a chuckle. “What, like,  _ now? _ ”

Ella laughed, shoving his arm playfully. She sat up and faced him, flushed and anxious, though her voice was even. “No. For one, my dad’s still awake. But, I just mean...we do pretty much everything  _ up _ to having sex, but we’ve never had sex. We’ve been together for almost three months. I just figured we should talk about it.”

Shutting his book, Jess crossed his arms over his chest. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a talent for subtlety?”

She rolled her eyes. “My bluntness is  _ at least _ half my charm.”

“‘Charm’ is a pretty strong word.”

Launching a teasing pillow at his face, Ella giggled. “I’m trying to be serious here, Mariano.”

“Okay, sorry. Go on.”

“Okay. So...sex.”

He bit his lip to fight off a smirk. “Yes?”

“Well, have you had sex?” she asked.

“Yeah. There was one girl back in New York. Tara. She was nice, I guess. But it wasn’t a Nora Ephron type deal or anything.”

“You like Nora Ephron?” she interrupted, brows furrowed. Not incredulous, only perplexed.

He narrowed his eyes momentarily but ignored the interjection. “I dated her when I was a freshman and then she moved to Albany. Then, your best friend Shane-”

“Fuck off.”

“Not a chance. But, the answer is yes.” Then, after a pause, he furrowed his brows. It occurred to him what a gray area that part of her past was to him. “Have you?”

She nodded. “Hm-mm. A couple times.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling shyly at the way he tilted his head. There was no judgement in his voice. “Right after my mom died, I went to a couple parties...Well, not parties. They were more like get-togethers. Anyway, I got super stoned. This kid Brian smoked with me and we just sorta…did it. There were a couple more parties that year. Rinse. Repeat. Eventually, I started working more and just stopped going.”

“And you never-”

“No, never got together with him,” she answered before he even had to ask. “I never had a ‘relationship’ with anyone. Never had sex with anyone else. It was a good thing, though, I think. Being with him. At the time, I felt so shitty. For just a little while, it made me feel better. He’s a nice kid. Plays for the marching band. Sometimes sex is just sex, y’know?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Jess agreed. “But...with us?”

Running a hand through her hair, Ella felt her insides flutter at the look he gave her. It was almost….open? Not quite, but almost. “Well, do you wanna have sex with me?”

Swallowing dryly, Jess nodded and hoped he didn’t appear as flustered as he felt. “Yeah. Yeah, I do...Do you wanna have sex with me?”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding casually. It felt odd, talking so frankly with him. But it wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, it was exciting. Would it feel different with a boyfriend? She bet it would. 

He cleared his throat, doing his best to hold her hazel gaze. “Good, then. That’s good.”

“I think it is, yeah.”

Bringing a hand to his shoulder, she pulled him in for a short, sweet kiss. And Jess’s heart felt light, relieved. Sometimes, Ella was challenging, she was complicated. But, when it was just the two of them, without all the noise which surrounded their daily lives, it was just so easy. And he could remember no other person he’d ever felt so at home with, who understood him so completely. And when she pulled away, he could still feel the ghost of her lips on his own. 

“Alright, I’ve  _ got _ to finish this chapter,” she said, grabbing her book again and shifting next to him, her back against the mural and her head coming to rest on his shoulder. When she cracked open the pages to her marked place, Jess following suit, she sighed. “This book is excruciating.  _ Why _ would anyone read this recreationally?”

“You  _ really _ wanna talk excruciating, Stevens?” he wagered, eyebrows raised as he looked down at her. “Need I remind you of  _ Finnegan’s Wake _ ? And don’t even get me started on this so-called Christmas book.”

“It  _ is _ a Christmas book,” she argued, gesturing down to the Betty Smith novel in his hands. 

Jess shook his head. “Just because Christmas  _ happens _ in a story doesn’t make it a Christmas story. This is the  _ Godfather _ debate all over again.”

She sighed once more. “You're never gonna convince me  _ The Godfather _ isn’t a Christmas movie. Give it up, James Dean.”

“Only like fifteen minutes of that movie takes place at Christmas, my god, how many times-”

. . .

Just before official closing, Luke came back from Doose’s with supplies for Thanksgiving to stock the back room. The diner was to stay open on Thursday, and Luke would feed traditional turkey dinner to whoever stepped through the door. The past two years, Ella had worked all day, eating with Luke, Lorelai, and Rory during down times. The year before, she’d also gone to her aunt’s house following her shift to see the kids. But, with Fiona moved in and engaged to her father, the obligations had changed drastically. She was still working the morning shift, but was due home no later than two. Her older brother was coming, along with her aunt, her aunt’s husband, and her nieces. 

Cleaning the counter with lemony disinfectant, she watched her boss trudge through the diner with heavy bags to the stockroom. Luke declined her offer to help carry things, as she had known he would. Instead, she was to keep closing. The clock ticked rhythmically on the wall, and the anxiety for the approaching holiday mixed in her stomach with excitement and pleasant nerves for what the evening was to hold. Jess had slipped out the door around lunch time with the blue vest in the pocket of his leather jacket, telling her he’d be back around nine. And he still wouldn’t budge and tell her where they were going for their ‘secret date.’ But it wasn’t as though she didn’t know why. He hadn’t been able to treat her during their first date, and every date since had been more of a casual hang-out, or a mutually-arranged affair. He still wanted to show her what was, in his opinion, the first date she deserved. So, she wouldn’t argue  _ too much _ . When the bell over the door sounded, Ella smirked before she even looked up to see him. 

“Ready to spill your guts, James Dean?” she asked immediately as he came and sat at the counter in front of her. 

Jess scoffed. “Eager much?”

“Jackass much?”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you almost done?”

Nodding, Ella threw the rag in her hand into the dirty bin below the counter. She could hear Luke rummaging around in the back still.

“Hey Luke?” she called.

He came out with his hands on his hips, baseball cap in its rightful place as always. “Yeah?”

“I’m finished out here. Alright if I clock out?” she asked.

Luke eyed his nephew suspiciously, who looked back at him with his usual smug smirk. “Only if Walmart’s favorite stock boy doesn’t keep you out too late.”

The expression fell on Jess’s face and was replaced with furrowed brows, mouth set in a thin line. He’d managed quite a many few months keeping the secret from Luke, until he’d got his car. It was only after Luke accused him of prostitution that he finally came clean. And the teasing had been relentless ever since. 

“Don’t worry,” Ella said, smiling as she went to the kitchen to clock out and hang her apron. 

With Ella out of the room, Luke pointed a finger at his nephew and took on an accusatory stance. “No drinking, no smoking, no-”

“No drugs, no five-dollar street corner sex, I got it,” Jess interrupted begrudgingly. 

Luke grunted in annoyance and rolled his eyes, but said nothing more as he went around to the cash register and started to close it out. Emerging from the back, Ella smoothed her hands over her simple black dress, then pulled her sleeves down over her hands nervously. Suddenly, she wondered if she wasn’t dressed for wherever they were going. She wished she had asked earlier. 

“Okay, time to spit it out,” she said, rounding the corner of the counter and grabbing his hand to pull him up. They walked towards the door and she donned her peacoat, taking her shoulder bag, emptier than normal without all the school contents. 

Jess smirked. “But what if a blindfold is part of the plan?”

“No fucking way.”

“ _ Hey! _ ” Luke piped up from the register at her language. The attempt at scolding was half-hearted, though. 

Rolling her eyes with good nature, Ella followed Jess out the door. “Sorry. Night, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke said with a small smile, waving a dismissive hand at the two kids. 

Once outside, Ella could see her breath in the night and she was glad she’d worn her thick black tights. Her Doc Martens crunched the orangey piles of dry leaves noisily as they descended the front steps and made their way across the street to Jess’s car. Before they could get in, though, Jess stopped in his tracks and turned to her, leaning against the car doors. 

“I’m waiting,” she teased, eyebrows raised impatiently. 

After reaching in his pocket momentarily, Jess went to tuck a strand of hair which had fallen from her low bun behind her ear. Then, he revealed a set of ear plugs in his hand, and Ella’s brow furrowed though her smile widened in nostalgia. 

“What’s up, Houdini?” 

“Figured you might need these. Since we’re going to see the Distillers and all.”

“Are we?” she asked, taking the earplugs from him. 

Nodding, Jess brought the tickets from his pocket and held them up for her to see. She broke out in a grin. 

“Not bad, Mariano.”

“Yeah, I know you’re more into melancholia, but you were listening to my CD the other week. So, when I saw they were coming to Harford, I figured...” he trailed off humbly, shrugging. “And we’ve been together almost three months and I still haven’t seen those famous Eleanor Stevens dance moves.”

She chuckled, flushing slightly. He could smell her rosemary scent as she leaned closer and rested her hands on the back of his neck. “Don’t know if you’re ready for that. They’re deadly.”

“In more ways than one I’ve heard,” he quipped.

“Shut up,” she said. “This is awesome, Jess. Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

And she brought him in for a kiss, smiling into it. Jess could feel his shoulders release their tension. He hadn’t known if she’d be happy. They were one of his favorite bands, and he’d heard rumors of their coming to town when she’d chosen them as her angry music weeks earlier. Though he wasn’t big on signs, he thought maybe the universe was telling him to share the experience with her. Let her in. It didn’t make him any less nervous, though. It was always there in the back of her mind, that worry she would realize what everyone else in the town already had. That he wasn’t good enough for her. But as he felt her hands in his hair, warmed by her touch in the cold November air, he couldn’t help but forget his fears for just a moment. 

. . .

Mid-morning light streamed through the small window into Ella’s cramped bedroom. Her cacti sat on the dresser, soaking up the sunshine, as Jess and Ella slept soundly on the mattress. Wearing a big KISS t-shirt, Ella turned over in her sleep and faced Jess, his arm draped over her tightening slightly. A shirtless Jess lay beneath the whitish blanket next to her, snoring softly. His jeans and t-shirt were strewn near the bed, along with Ella’s dress. Still pumped full of adrenaline after the concert, Ella had crept through the house the night before to make sure everyone was asleep, then snuck Jess through her window. And their first time together was even better than she’d imagined. Sweet and a little awkward and wonderful, reminding her almost of their first kiss months before. And, afterwards, they’d stayed up talking for hours, with a fair amount of teasing from Jess over the t-shirt she’d decided to wear to bed. KISS was perhaps her biggest guilty pleasure. 

Upon a soft knocking on Ella’s creaky white door, Jess began to stir. He cleared his throat and rubbed at his tired eyes before fully waking, becoming aware of his surroundings. Then, a voice came from the hallway outside. 

“Ella? Fiona wants to take us to Doose’s to get Thanksgiving stuff!”

Sitting up slightly, Jess saw Ella was still deep asleep.

“Elle? Wake up,” he said, shaking her shoulder gently. It took at least thirty seconds before her eyes finally fluttered open. 

“Hm?”

“You gotta wake up. Someone’s at your door,” he said quietly, hastily. Another knock sounded on the wood, and Jess glanced up, biting his lip. 

Taking in a sharp breath, Ella nodded and her hazy eyes blinked harshly awake. The knocking on the door was persistent now, and her brother called her name a couple more times. She gestured for Jess to move to the corner near the dresser, out of view of the door, as she rushed over to open it. Poking her head out, she kept the door almost shut so only her face could be seen.

“God, Adam, knock louder, would you?” she snapped tiredly. 

Adam took a step back at her irritated tone, squinting behind his glasses at her behavior. “It’s not my fault you’re too lazy to get up on time.”

“Didn’t realize we had an appointment scheduled,” Ella shrugged, trying to make her tone lighter. 

Shrugging, Adam began to walk off. “We’re leaving for Doose’s in fifteen.”

“Fine,” she grumbled, shutting the door loudly as he walked away. 

“Wow, you’re not a morning person,” Jess remarked, a sardonic twinkle in his eye as he spoke from behind her. When she looked back, he was almost fully dressed already, buckling up his belt. “I gotta get back. Luke’s gonna be pissed.”

“Oh,  _ fuck _ , you’re right,” Ella sighed, running a hand through her messy locks. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about it sooner. Sometimes Jess seemed so independent, so out on his own, she forgot how much Luke had invested in taking care of him. 

Jess only shrugged. “My fault. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’ll tell him I was reading at the lake and just dozed off.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she said immediately, shaking her head. 

He came over to her and put an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “It’s fine. He’ll be less mad at  _ both _ of us. Win-win.”

“You think he’ll buy it?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“I have my ways.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever, James Dean.”

Chuckling, he pecked her lips and took one long look at her. Before he could help it, or worry about feeling stupid, he smiled down at her. Crooked and sincere. And Ella smiled back. 

“I had a good time,” she said.

Jess nodded in agreement. “Me too. The best of times.”

Sighing lightly, she rolled her eyes. “How do you always manage to bring up Dickens?”

“It’s a gift and a curse.”

And even after he pressed one final kiss to her lips, disappearing out the window and down the street, she couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off her face. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	15. Going Carole King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanksgiving brings pie-baking and family introductions.

Air in the diner was fragrant with spices, and Ella’s cheeks were flushed with the heat of the oven as she stepped back out of the kitchen. Only a few patrons peppered the red tables, Rory and Lorelai at the counter. They spoke about the four Thanksgivings they were roped into. A rare smile stuck out on Luke’s face as his palms rested on the counter, speaking with his one true love. Ella rolled her eyes at the sight. How could he be so oblivious? Shaking her head to herself, Ella turned to Jess, sitting on his stool near the kitchen door with  _ 1984 _ in his hands. His brow was heavy with concentration, noting something in the margin. 

“Some light reading, huh?” she asked, eyebrows raised. 

He looked up with a smirk at the sound of her voice. With hair pulled away from the hairline in a bandana and cascading down her back, Ella had an excited sparkle to her eyes and a streak of flour across her forehead. Jess licked the pad of his thumb and swiped it away. She scrunched up her nose. 

“Now I have Jess spit on my face,” she said with a groan. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Snorting a laugh, she rolled her eyes. “Fuck off.”

“ _ Hey! _ ” Luke scolded, brows furrowed as he shot a look back at her. His hands went to his hips, and Lorelai and Rory snickered behind him. 

Ella brought a hand to her mouth self-consciously. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. God, you have hearing like the Bionic Woman!”

Only grunting irritably, Luke went back to his conversation. Ella scoffed and turned to Jess, who marked his place in his book and stuffed it in the back pocket of his jeans. She brought her hands to his shoulders and his arms laced around her waist. 

“Are you going for a record with those pies this year?” Jess asked. She’d arrived at the diner around six in the morning, and had cooked continuously until two in the afternoon. And he hadn’t seen her so jazzed since applications, though now the stress was far more pleasant. 

She nodded. “Every year, it gets more impressive. Don’t you remember last year? You were here by then.”

Pursing his lips, Jess shook his head a little. “I think that day I was perfecting the chalk outline of a body.”

“ _ How  _ have you never been arrested?”

He shrugged. “There’s always time.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Right back at ya.”

Casting a glance over the counter at the nearly empty diner, she snuck a kiss to his cheek. Jess gasped, and placed a hand where her lips had been. “How dare you, Lady Chatterley!”

“Shut up,” she smiled, but then averted her gaze and turned more serious. “Hey, Jess?”

“Yes, Eleanor?”

Sighing heavily, she looked back up at him and clutched at her necklace. “Okay, my family’s coming to town tonight and considering Adam practically walked in on us the other day anyway, I thought maybe you could come for Thanksgiving?”

By the time she finished with her rapid speech, she slightly was winded. The key on her necklace zipped back and forth along its chain anxiously. Jess raised his eyebrows and sighed, running a hand over his mouth. 

“Elle, your dad already hates me-”

“What? Why would he?”

“Do you not remember the hair gel comment?” he asked.

Ella scoffed. “It rings a bell but he’s an asshole to everyone. It doesn’t mean he hates you!”

“I’m working tomorrow.”

“So am I. But I get off at two. The festivities here are usually over by then, and I’m sure you can just come with me.”

“I don’t do families,” he argued.

“Well, I don’t do boyfriends but look what happened!” she countered, and he only stared back at her with his mouth set in a thin line. 

She wasn’t planning to relent, but then the timer in the kitchen dinged and she breathed out a harsh breath through her nose. 

“To be continued,” she said. She turned to Luke before retreating back into the kitchen: “Talk some sense into your nephew, please!”

“Trouble in paradise?” Lorelai chimed in, looking to the scowling boy, who hopped down off his stool and came to stand by Luke. 

Jess didn’t reply.   
  


“What happened? You roll your eyes at her one too many times or something?” Luke asked. 

“You’re one to talk,” Lorelai said. 

Jess sighed, speaking only to his uncle. “She wants me to go to her house for Thanksgiving.”

Luke stared at him for a moment, mouth slightly agape. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jess shrugged, then noticed the flabbergasted looks both Lorelai and Rory shot his way. The mother and daughter then glanced at each other, sending nonverbal signals between them. Jess rolled his eyes. “ _ What? _ ”

Rory fiddled with the mug of coffee before her, speaking shyly. “It’s just...Ella doesn’t really...her family functions don’t ever exactly have open invitations.”

“Well, I must be special, then,” Jess said flatly, sighing again. 

Luke sighed back, finally turning to Jess with a wary gaze. “You have to go. You’re off the hook tomorrow at two, okay?”

“I thought we talked about that totalitarian thing, Uncle Luke,” Jess said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning with his back to the counter. 

“ _ Just _ Luke,” his uncle grumbled, shaking his head one last time before going to write a receipt for a couple near the door. 

A crash sounded from the back and Jess could hear Ella mutter a string of obscenities under her breath. Luke hardly batted an eyelash at the noise, and Lorelai and Rory giggled between sips from their giant coffee mugs. She didn’t have Sookie’s reputation, but Ella wasn’t known for being a silent presence while she baked by any means.

“You okay?” Jess called.

“Yes!”

“She’s beauty and she’s grace,” he deadpanned. 

“Bite me, Mariano!” she shouted back, nearly a growl. 

“You know she’s not going to take ‘no’ for an answer, don’t you, Bender?” Lorelai teased. 

Chewing on his lower lip, Jess nodded. It was clear this was a hill she was willing to die on. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad? At least if he met everyone he would be able to add faces to names. And the pleading look in her hazel eyes surely wasn’t helping him want to refuse her. Arriving back behind the counter, Ella pulled the sleeves of her burgundy sweater over her hands and brushed past Jess to grab the pot and refill Lorelai and Rory’s coffees. Tapping his fingers rhythmically on the counter next to her, Jess hung his head in defeat. 

“Fine. I’ll go.”

“What was that?” she asked, raising one eyebrow but not facing him.

“I know you heard me, Daria.”

“Well, I wanna hear it again, James Dean,” she said, finally locking eyes with him. 

“Fine, I will come to the Stevens family Thanksgiving,” he repeated. 

A wicked grin bloomed on her face and she stood on her tiptoes to plant another kiss on his cheek. “There’s that heart of gold. Didn’t think you’d cave so easily.”

“I’ll go  _ if _ -”

“I swear-”

“ _ If _ you play me something on Patty’s piano.”

She took a step back and confusion painted her face. “ _ What? Why? _ ”

“Well, I got to see the dance moves, now I wanna see the piano skills,” he explained, nonchalant. 

“No way,” she said, shaking her head. 

Jess shrugged. “That’s my final offer, ma’am.”

Hands in her back pockets, she let her narrowed eyes linger on his smug smirk for a moment. “Fine. Deal.”

“And you  _ don’t _ subscribe to the Hallmark holidays.”

“Not happily. Believe me.”

. . .

Though the paint was faded, the Stevens’ door was still a decently bright shade of blue. They both stared at it, hand-in-hand, preparing to enter. Ella’s nails were bitten down and her heart was in the throat. She could only imagine what Jess was feeling; if he was anxious, he wasn’t showing it. Birds chirped in the oak tree in the front yard, despite the bitter bite to the cold wind. The sun shone down, and almost all the leaves had fallen off the trees. She fiddled with her necklace, and the smell of the Thanksgiving dinner cooking inside the house only made her queasy. 

“You ready?” Jess asked, breaking the silence. She had been motionless, staring at the worn wood before them for over ninety seconds. 

Swallowing dryly, she shook her head. “No.”

Taking her hand back from his, she smoothed down the font of her dark green dress. Her hair was back in a french braid, a stiffer ensemble than she usually went for. Then, she turned back to him. Though he didn’t have a baseball cap, Jess was giving his uncle a run for his money with the flannel and jeans look. 

“Just...don’t let anything they say bother you, alright? Last night, I went over the whole thing and told them you’re my boyfriend and not just my friend, so that’ll probably make them want to interrogate you more,” she said, tugging gently at his collar to straighten it.

“I’ll try not to screw it up,” Jess told her, almost defensive. 

An annoyed crease formed between her brows. “No, Jess, I don’t care what they think of you. And I figured it was time to get this over with. I’m just nervous they’ll scare you off.”

He scoffed. “ _ Please. _ My mother’s a certified whackjob. If there’s anyone who gets the family thing, it’s me.”

Nodding, she let out a long breath. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said, shrugging dismissively. “Getting to see you go all Carole King tonight will be thanks enough.”

Ella rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Mariano. You really shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

“Too late,” he said, kissing her cheek once and taking her hand again. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she sighed, then went to turn the knob.

. . .

Sitting on the overstuffed couch, Jess felt a little claustrophobic. Dinner had gone well enough. As it turned out, almost all the members of Ella’s family were a thousand times more talkative than her. Jess and Ella were mostly spared from the conversation, after the compulsory greetings and basic questions about him. The food was decent, though Ella assured him they could stop by Luke’s after to have the truly good meal later. Relatively full of turkey, various family members were sprawled around the living room, Fiona, Jake and Aunt Julie’s husband Michael chattering indistinctly in the peach kitchen. Jess sat in the corner, watching his surroundings, his hand in Ella’s. Her older brother Noah sat on his sister’s other side, quietly sipping a beer. Aunt Julie was across the room in the armchair by the TV, a toddler asleep on her chest. 

Jess assumed it was the kid responsible for the projectile vomiting Ella had told him about over the summer. Amid the white noise of speech, Ella deep in a debate with her younger brother about the newest Harry Potter movie, a little redhead girl ran up to her. 

“Ellie!” Erin chirped happily, her hands on Ella’s knees. 

Immediately, Ella turned away Adam, who sat on the floor by the TV, and focused on the child in front of her. Adam whined slightly, and Noah took over for Ella, though he spoke more softly than her and didn’t speak with his hands.

“Yeah, sweetie?” Ella asked.

Using a pudgy hand, Erin gestured for Ella to come closer, to be told a secret. Ella smiled over at Jess, who raised his eyebrows curiously and watched as she leaned over and let the little girl whisper in her ear. 

Laughing slightly, Ella nodded and brought the little girl into her lap. She had just started kindergarten, but was very small for her age. She weighed practically nothing to Ella. 

“Yeah, sure,” Ella said, turning to Jess with a little smirk. “Jess? Erin wanted to meet you.”

“Oh,” he said. Then, after a pause: “Hi.”

He felt his palms instantly begin to sweat. As an only child, he didn’t have much experience with kids. Was he good with them? Terrible with them? There was no way to know. Like people who had never been stung by a bee avoiding the insects at all costs, for fear of a life-threatening allergic reaction. Despite her insistence that it was not a test, that she was more concerned with him being scared off, Jess worried about his performance. He wasn’t good with parents. In fact, he wasn’t good with anyone. And he knew how much those kids meant to her.

The redhead girl extended her hand. “I’m Erin Mary Miller.”

Jess chuckled slightly and shook the tiny hand back. “Jess Mariano.”

“What’s your middle name?” Erin asked.

Ella smirked. “Great question. What  _ is  _ your middle name, Jess?” 

She’d asked him a few times, but had never got it out of him. 

“Santa Claus,” he answered flatly.

To his surprise though, the girl erupted in a fit of bright giggles. Ella laughed along with her, watching fondly. 

“You’re not Santa Claus! He doesn’t live in Connecticut!” Erin exclaimed, shaking her head at Jess as though he were crazy. 

“Really? Where does he live?” he asked.

“The North Pole, silly!”

“Oh, you’re right. I forgot,” Jess said, nodding. 

Ella hummed. “Yeah, Erin knows all kinds of things. She just started kindergarten.”

“Congratulations,” Jess said, nodding at the little girl. 

“Thank you!” she smiled, utterly charmed. 

“Hey, Jess?” Ella asked, tilting her head a little as Erin hugged her around the middle again. She was a very affectionate child. “Do you have your cards with you?”

Nodding, Jess reached in the pocket of his jeans and produced the blue deck. He heard Erin whispering questions and secrets in Ella’s ear again. He began shuffling, then fanned them and held them out. “Pick a card.”

Over the next ten minutes, Jess did his best to dazzle the five-year-old, claiming he was pure magic. The conversation once or twice again veered to Santa Claus, since he had brought it up. Christmas was in only a month, after all. Though a pit of nerves still sat in his stomach, he began to feel calmer as he kept Erin laughing and Ella played along with his bits. Soon, Fiona came in and announced it was time for pie, for everyone to gather around the cramped dining table and card tables. The house was quaint, and clearly not meant for a big family on a daily basis. 

Fiona was perhaps the member of the family Jess had been the most curious about.

Of course, he’d met Ella’s father. He could only barely see the resemblance, with Jake’s dark brown hair and height and blue eyes. It was clear Ella had gotten pretty much all her looks from her mother. And her brothers both looked more like their father. Noah was tall as well, though with Ella’s freckles. Adam had the same thick glasses, but Ella’s short height. He’d heard many things about all of them. 

However, Fiona was the person definitely involved in most of Ella’s rants. Her father was usually the main source of tension, but Fiona certainly did no help to calm the situations, according to Ella. She was a tall woman, with hair dyed inky black. Chunky bracelets hung from her wrists and a heart pendant was clasped around her neck. She wore bright clothes and had a nasally voice. Her eyes were an icy grey. Overall, she wasn’t the most unlikable woman. She and Jake seemed happy enough, outwardly at least. But Jess could see immediately why she and Ella did not get along. Fiona was bubbly and chirpy and always had a toothy and people-pleasing smile on her face. She seemed Ella’s opposite in nearly every way. 

After Fiona’s announcement, everyone made slow attempts to return to their places. Erin ran off immediately, eager for the promise of dessert. As Julie passed them into the kitchen, Annie still dozing on her shoulder, she offered Jess and Ella, hands attached again, a generous smile. 

“Guess there’s gonna be a magic kit on the Christmas list this year, huh?” she said, chuckling.

Jess’s face fell slightly. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t-”

“No, no, don’t worry about it,” Julie interrupted, a bright smile only growing. “Nothing that’s got her laughing like that could be a bad thing.”

And, for a moment, just the two of them were left in the living room. Ella pulled him up off the couch and hesitated a moment before leading the way back into the kitchen. 

“One more round, then we’re free,” she said, sighing slightly, though not altogether in irritation. 

He nodded over at her wordlessly, smirking. 

Ella squeezed his hand and pressed a kiss to his cheek, before they entered the peach-tiled lion’s den once again. 

. . .

Bluish light streamed in through the windows of the dance studio. They sat, full of both the Stevens and Danes Thanksgiving dinners, on the piano bench. Fingers poised over the keys, Ella felt her heart rise up in her throat. Usually, she didn’t get stage fright. But, usually, she was playing for a group of six-year-olds, and Miss Patty, who had known her since the day she was born. Jess waited, a smirk ever-present. The day hadn’t been quite as challenging as he’d initially imagined. Ella’s father had hardly been warm, but it was easier when there were other people around to distract from the interrogation. The festivities were just too hectic for a proper stripping down, and Jess suspected it was why Ella had chosen it as the moment to formally introduce him to her household.

“Today would be nice,” he teased, gesturing to the instrument.

“Shut up,” she hissed, shaking her head at herself. 

Then, she swallowed down her nerves and launched into one of the first songs her mother taught her to play. Back when her hair was still always in pigtails and she wore overalls every single day. It was familiar, and as she sang in her rough, half-speaking voice (her grandmother’s jazz genes had certainly skipped over her), she smiled a little. She remembered her mother humming the song, “Rhiannon,” in the kitchen as she made dinner and in the living room as she sat cross-stitching on sleepy Sunday afternoons. Keeping her eyes on the piano, Ella’s cheeks flamed. When she finally finished, she had barely let the last note ring out before she started rambling, still not looking over at him.

“So, yeah, I can sort of play. But my mom was the one who was actually good. That one’s easy because it’s not traditionally a piano song, not like the classical shit I have to play for recitals and stuff, but-”

“Eleanor,” Jess said, cutting her short. 

“Hm?” she asked, finally venturing a glance at him. 

There was a soft smile on his face. “Come here,” he said in a husky whisper, a hand on her cheek as he leaned into her. He tasted like cinnamon and sugar, her own apple pie recipe. It was quiet and Ella almost felt a private world insulating them as they kissed.

And when she pulled away, she saw a kind shine in his eyes. Clearing her throat, she bit back a laugh. “So, was that the review?”

“You could call it that. You really don’t know how to accurately describe your talent.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly as she rolled her eyes, brushing off the compliment and taking in the moment. Starlight and cinnamon and deep brown eyes. Jess. 

His eyes lingered on her. He would’ve said more, elaborated on how beautiful it sounded, but both her clear embarrassment and his own sheepishness stopped him.

“Y’know, I had my first kiss in this spot,” she said after a moment’s pause. 

“Really? Does he go to our school?”

Her eyes fell momentarily, and she smirked self-consciously. “ _ She _ graduated last year.”

Jess’s eyebrows shot up momentarily. “ _ She _ , huh?”

“Yeah. And if you have a problem with that, you should tell me now so I can dump your ass.”

“I don’t have a problem.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope,” he assured her in earnest. “No problem at all.”

“Good.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, tucking a strand which had fallen loose from the braid behind her ear. “Lucky her.”

She scoffed. “More like lucky me. She was a year older and she was the best ballerina in the class. Stayed behind sometimes to practice while I was getting ready to fill in for shows, when my mom had already died but Mrs. Rotherschild was starting to have knee problems. I must’ve still been fourteen. Anyway...a few make-outs ensued.”

“Huh,” he said. 

She nodded. “Yeah. We never told anyone. And she was in New York for dance stuff most weekends anyway, so we couldn’t actually go out. She’s at Juilliard now...but yeah. I’m glad it happened. Definitely one of my better firsts.”

Huffing out a breath, Ella tugged the elastic from the end of the braid and shook it out as she spoke. Tight waves were undone and fell loose down her back. Her heart calmed, the tension releasing from her shoulders. 

“Don’t...tell anyone about that, okay?” she asked, fiddling with her necklace again. 

He nodded, a small smile on his face. “‘Course. Cross my heart.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, still smiling softly as he planted a kiss on her forehead.

“What about you?”

“Hm?”

“Who was your first kiss?” she asked.

Biting his lip, he had to rack his brain a moment. He decided not to count the few random instances of spin-the-bottle. Back in New York when he went to parties he was probably too young for, bouncing between friends’ apartments during the day as his mother wooed her husbands-of-the-week. 

“My first girlfriend. We were out smoking during lunch and I made out with her on a dare. But..she ended up being my girlfriend so it must not’ve been the worst kiss ever,” he said, shrugging casually at the memory. 

She smiled. “Little Jess was quite the romantic, huh?”

Rolling his eyes and fighting his blush, he stood up and held his hand out to her. “Whatever. Are we renting  _ The Godfather _ or what?”

“That’s the plan,” she said, placing her bag back on her shoulder and taking his hand. She could feel the cold air creeping through the cracks in the front door of the dance studio as they approached it, leaning into Jess's side. “So...I’ve already learned so much about you tonight. What’s the big deal if I know your middle name?”

Jess sighed, sliding the barn-style door aside as they emerged into the night. “Keep dreaming, Stevens.”

“I always am.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	16. Can I Look, Miss O'Keefe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distance grows between Ella and Jess as they dance around forbidden topics and discuss their fears.

Crunchy snow and ice coated the streets of Stars Hollow, and large flakes fell from the dark, cloudy sky as Ella sat up, awake in the Gilmore living room. The monkey lamp on the side table offered a yellow glow. It was the early hours of the morning, New Year’s Eve. Christmas had come and gone, and the days before the return to school were filled with good books and movie marathons. Though Lane had gone home earlier, before they finished their last John Hughes flick, Lorelai insisted Ella stay on the couch for the night. It was past midnight and the roads were in no condition to be walked on. And though she was comfortable, probably more relaxed than she was in her own home, she’d tossed and turned for about an hour before deciding the effort was hopeless. 

Instead, she took the copy of  _ Slaughterhouse Five _ from her bag and read quietly, adding her own notes to the margins alongside Jess’s. Before, the room would have been drafty. But Luke had recently fixed the windows (again). Ella was cozy beneath a bunch of spare blankets, dressed in only a tank top and a borrowed pair of Rory’s sweatpants. The Gilmore women were tall though, and Ella had to cuff the pants at the bottom so they wouldn’t drag on the floor when she walked. Her eyes were starting to get heavy, but she was too engrossed in the story to consider putting it down. She had no idea what time it was, though it was still pitch black outside, when soft footfalls sounded on the stairs. 

Clearing her throat, Ella marked a place in the book with her finger, and looked up to see a sleepy Lorelai. “Hi, sorry. Did I wake you?”

Lorelai shook her head slightly. “No, sweetie. I got up to use the bathroom and I saw the light was on. Wanted to make sure you and Rory didn’t start a midnight cult behind my back or something.”

“That  _ does _ sound like us,” Ella said, cracking a small smile. 

Lorelai sat down on the coffee table next to the couch, elbows on her knees. “What’s going on?”

Shrugging, Ella averted her eyes and gestured to her book. “Oh, just reading. Jess gave me his copy and I wanted to be done by our shift tomorrow. There’s just  _ so much _ to argue about.”

“Well, it’s good to know I need to steer clear of you two tomorrow, but is that  _ really _ why you’re up with Vonnegut at almost three in the morning?” Lorelai asked, tilting her head. 

Ella hesitated a moment, but then sighed and clutched at her necklace. “I just...people are starting to get college decisions in the mail. And...I don’t know.”

“You’re gonna get in, Ella. You’ve got perfect grades, and a job, and-”

Scoffing, Ella nodded. “Yeah, I just...I’m gonna have to live at home. And I’m worried I’ll never get outta here.”

“Stars Hollow?” Lorelai asked, sympathetic. 

She nodded again. “I mean...I wanna live in a city. Where every day I walk out the door to new people, and there’s new places to go and...I know and like this town. I do. But it stopped being home the day my mom died.”

Though she had passion in her voice and a smile still on her lips, Lorelai could see the sadness in Ella’s far-off gaze. It was something so striking and mature, something she never saw in Rory or Lane. Though Rory was an old soul in her own right, Lorelai could see Ella out on her own and doing just fine by the very next day. Lorelai leaned in a little closer, and the mothering tone came to her voice, which she had used on Ella more times than one in the past two and a half years.

“Ella, I want you to listen to me. You are smart, and talented, and you’re one of the strongest people I know,” Lorelai said, and raised a hand as Ella scoffed at her words. “I know it feels like it’ll take forever. But you have to be patient, okay? I  _ know _ that one day you’ll get to have everything you want.”

Shaking her head, Ella swallowed back the shine in her eyes. “You can’t know that.”

“But I can. I have the sight,” Lorelai said mystically. “It’s a certified Gilmore talent.”

It made Ella chuckle a little, and Lorelai smiled in response. “Okay, Lorelai.”

“Sweetie, I spent years living in a shed, just me and Rory. I was a maid who worked eighty hours a week. But now, I have a house and I’m a manager and I…” she paused to sigh, gesturing to the room around them while she tried to articulate her thoughts. “Anything worth having is gonna take time. You’ll get there. I know it.”

Blowing out a soft breath, Ella leaned back against the pillows. “Okay. Thank you. Sorry for being such a freak.”

“Hardly,” Lorelai said, shaking her head. “Freaks are the only people worth being around. I think you already know that.”

“That I do.”

Lorelai rose from the table and draped the blankets up over Ella more. “Now go to sleep. You’ve gotta be in fighting shape if you’re going up against John Bender tomorrow.”

Ella scoffed. “I could take him on no sleep at all.”

Laughing, Lorelai made for the stairs. “I’d bet on you.”

“Hey, Lorelai?” Ella called, snuggling down into the couch and turning onto her side. 

Lorelai turned. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. For everything. I mean, I’ll never be able to-”

“Sweetie,” Lorelai interrupted, a kind expression softening her face. “You’re welcome. Now, dream of those Eggos we’ll feast on in the morning.”

. . .

Tuckered out from a long day of waitressing and literary sparring, Ella leaned her head on her crossed arms against the counter. She sat at a stool, already dozing by ten o’clock. Having finished up closing the front of house early, with Luke’s help, she waited for Jess to complete his dishwashing duties. He was back over the steaming vat as soon as his stitches were yanked out. Upstairs, she could hear Luke trying to set up his small, black-and-white TV. Her thoughts were becoming hazy when Jess finally emerged from the back, smirking. 

“You told me not to let you fall asleep yet, Stevens,” he said. 

She lifted her head, brows furrowed. “I can do what I please, Mariano.”

“Oooo, angry face,” he teased. 

“Fuck off,” she grumbled, clearing her throat as she hopped down off the stool. 

“Oh, this is bound to be an amazing night.”

Ella tugged on her coat and grabbed her bag. “Sorry, sorry. Just give me five minutes and I’ll be back to Little Miss Sunshine.”

Jess snorted a laugh. “I think that’s too ambitious.”

“You underestimate me, Mariano,” she quipped, smirking. Going back over to the checkered curtain, she shouted up the stairs. “Hey Luke, we’re leaving!”

“Okay!” he yelled back.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay and celebrate with you?” she asked, ignoring Jess when he shook his head at her. She’d been asking it over and over all day. No matter how much Luke insisted, she couldn’t believe he actually wanted to spend New Year’s alone. 

Finally, Luke opened the apartment door and she could see him at the top of the creaky stairs. “For God’s sake, go. No drinking, drugs-”

“Or animal sacrifices, I got it!” she finished for him, smirking. 

“And Jess  _ will _ be back by-”

“Two!” Jess chimed in, tone flat and his mouth set in a thin line. 

“Happy New Year!” Ella said, grabbing Jess’s hand and leading him towards the front door. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke grunted, shutting the apartment door behind him. 

. . .

Ella could feel the rumble of Jess’s voice, her head on his chest, as they laid together in her bed. The lavender candles were lit, and her old alarm clock was set for ten til midnight. A bottle of red wine sat in the fridge, the only alcohol left in the house by her father and Fiona before they went out of town to celebrate with Fiona’s sister in Nevada. They were going to toast when the clock on the stove struck midnight, then go back to her room to continue with Jess’s reading of  _ Frankenstein.  _ Originally, the plan had been to watch the  _ Twilight Zone _ marathon all night. But, Adam and his friends had gotten to the living room first, playing video games on the modest TV. Being confined to her bedroom wasn’t so bad, but the challenge for Ella was staying awake. Jess chose the Mary Shelley novel simply because he knew how much she loved the story, hoping she wouldn’t fall asleep to it. Especially because he knew he wouldn’t have the heart to wake her if she truly fell asleep. 

Shifting in her space, Ella caught a glance at the clock and saw it was a half hour to midnight. Jess was halfway through a passage, and she sat up with crossed legs and looked down at him, yawning. 

“Jess?” she asked when there was a pause in the text. 

“Hm?”

“Are you happy?” 

His brows furrowed and he sat up against the mural. “Excuse me?”

Scoffing, she averted her gaze. “I just mean...working at Walmart and Luke’s and being...here? In Stars Hollow?”

Jess shrugged, setting the book aside and crossing his arms over his chest. “It’s not too terrible a place to be. And I plan to get out of Stars Hollow.”

“And go where?” she asked, eyes rimmed red with fatigue.

“Wherever.”

She smirked at his nonchalance. “And write?”

Again, he shrugged, sitting up straighter. “Maybe. I’ll live where I live and work where I work.”

Ella snorted a laugh. “Alright, Kerouac. So you’re not going back to New York?”

He shook his head, expression guarded. 

“You don’t miss it?”

Though he seemed to hesitate a moment, his tone was firm when he spoke again. His eyes were somewhere else, staring over at the stack of records near her dresser. Led Zeppelin played low from the turntable, another effort to stay awake. “Miss my mom drinking herself into accepting random wedding proposals and barely scrounging up enough cash to keep the heat on?”

Her heart sank into her stomach, and, instinctively, she began to run her fingers through his hair. On break from school, she noticed he used gel and other products less and less. It was more relaxed and fell down a little over his forehead. 

“No, I can’t say I’m bending over backwards to get back there again,” he said. 

Ella nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  
“Nothing for you to be sorry over,” he replied immediately, though not angry. He wanted to squirm under her touch, still uncomfortable talking about his past, but tried to relax. 

“Hey,” she said softly, after a momentary silence. Jess finally met her eyes again. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

As she kissed him sweetly, slow and simple, he interlaced their fingers, finally losing the tension in his body. Skin against skin, she could feel the thin, pinkish scar on his hand. When she pulled away, he put his arm around her shoulders and she moved to lean back against him. His free hand was still in hers, and she touched the scar gingerly. 

“And you wanted me to wait for Luke to superglue this up,” she said, with a teasing shake of her head. 

He rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t have died.”

Ella sighed. “Anything’s possible.”

Jess bit his lip, feeling his heart twist slightly. Though he’d heard a fair bit about her mother, he still didn’t know how she died. From the way the townspeople sometimes looked at her, with so much pity and sympathy, Jess could gather it wasn't a ‘going gently into that good night’ kind of situation. Whatever had happened, it had been sudden, and it had been shocking. He pressed a kiss to her head and tried to keep his voice light. 

“Well, it definitely wasn’t as  _ Texas Chainsaw Massacre _ as the other time I got stitches.”

“The other time?” she asked, looking up at him. 

Swallowing dryly, he held out his left arm for her to see, sleeve rolled up. On the inside of his forearm, near his elbow, there was a large, semicircular scar, pale and raised, but old. For a moment Ella wondered why she’d never noticed it before, but she knew if she wasn’t looking for it, she wouldn’t ever have spotted it. 

“Jesus. What happened?” she asked, a crease between her brows. 

“Cujo,” he said, smirking slightly. “This dog across the hall from us when I was five. I tried to pet him and he wasn’t on quite the same wavelength.”

“ _ Fuck _ , Jess,” she said, shaking her head slightly. Ella squeezed his hand.

“It’s alright,” he said. “World bites you, dog bites boy. It’s chaos out there.”

She chuckled a little, nodding. “Sad but true.”

“Did you ever get stitches?” 

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “ _ But, _ your dogs and needles are my oceans.”

“Oceans?” Jess asked.

“When I was seven, we went to Ogunquit to visit my grandparents. It was the only time I ever went to a beach, and I got caught in a riptide. I didn’t pass out or anything, but I drifted out pretty far before my dad got me. Waves kept crashing over me and I kept going under.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to cancel those tickets to Bora Bora, huh?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I’d recommend it.”

He smiled back, then they settled back down into the bed, Jess grabbing the book again. Before he started, however, he looked over at her in askance. 

“Are you happy, Eleanor?”

“At this moment? Very.”

. . .

Storming into the diner, Ella shook the snow from her peacoat and unwound her scarf, huffing in frustration. January was frigid, but Ella’s blood boiled and her heart pounded in her ears. Schoolwork weighed down her bag, heavy with post-break assignments and reading. Once inside, the heat hit her pleasantly, but her nose began to run and her face flushed. She wasn’t surprised to find Jess not inside the diner; he’d been at school only twice in the past week and he was taking more shifts at Walmart than he once had. New Year’s had been a good night, a kiss at midnight and heads buzzing on red wine as Ella walked Jess back to the diner in fresh snow and the twinkling light of the town square. 

But she could see something was bothering him. He didn’t leave quite as many notes in the margins, looked tired most of the time. And each time she asked him about it, he brushed it off, told her he was fine, and pressed a heated kiss to her lips. He didn’t call her as often. The recent disconnect between them, which she thought now might have begun even back in early December, did nothing to help her current mood. She went to the back to grab her apron, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ears. If he didn’t want to talk, she didn’t need to talk to him. Whatever he needed to work out, apparently he wanted to do it on his own. It was what she said whenever Luke asked after him. She wasn’t his mother, and Luke was his guardian. It wasn’t her job to fix Jess. And, in her mind, Jess didn’t need fixing. 

Luke stood behind the counter filling coffee mugs, and he nodded at her as she passed. “Hey, Ella. How are ya? You have a good week?”

“I’m just peachy,” she said back, no emotion in her voice. 

Perking up, Luke furrowed his brows at her. She wasn’t known for being cheery, exactly, but usually she strung together more than three words. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quietly, her voice a sigh. 

“C’mon, kid, we’re well past white lies,” Luke said, hands on his hips.

Ella rolled her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, an ache behind her eyes. It wasn’t migraine level, but the throbbing pain made her feel a little sick to her stomach. 

“They got married,” she said shortly. 

“What?” Luke asked. 

Sighing, she watched Babette and Maury walk in, waving at them with a tiny smile. 

“Hey, sugar! We’ll need a minute to order!” Babette called in her breathy, gravelly voice. It made Ella feel marginally better. 

Her serious demeanor returned when she turned back to Luke. “My dad and Fiona got married. In Vegas. They took a whole week off—who knows how they could afford it on an electrician’s and a hairdresser’s salary—and apparently they thought: ‘Hey, let’s get married, not tell anyone, and not call for the whole week. In fact, let’s not go visit Fiona’s sister,’ which is what they said they were doing in the first place.”

There was a beat of silence, and finally Luke nodded, mouth slightly agape. “Wow.”

“Yeah, so, that’s what’s wrong. There ya go,” she said, taking a rag and wiping down some water on the counter. She didn’t meet Luke’s eyes. 

“Ella, I’m-”

She raised a dismissive hand to stop him. “Luke, don’t worry, it’s alright. They seem happy, so, who am I to care? And besides, now I don’t have to give some phony speech at the wedding.”

. . .

The Clash blasted through the boombox, and though it did nothing to help her headache, it, oddly, made her heart slow. It took her mind off the storm of emotions brewing in the pit of her stomach. What if they ended up having another kid? Would her father mend the mistakes of his past? Would he see the error of his ways? She doubted it. People didn’t change. They  _ acted _ differently, but they didn’t change. Sometimes, she knew, all people wore disguises. It made fear rise up in her throat, and her hands shake. But, instead, she sang along to “Bank Robber” and drew a garden full of roses and wasps. On the other side of the page, there was a sketch of Fiona with a veil over her head. It almost made her want to cry. 

Luke was closing up downstairs, and offered the apartment to her to hang out in for a few hours after her shift. He knew what her home could be like. And the practice felt bittersweet and familiar to her; she’d spent many an afternoon at Luke’s kitchen table, sketching in the days after she lost her mother. The words she’d spoken to Lorelai a few nights earlier spun around in her brain. She would never be able to accept her mother’s death until Stars Hollow was in her rearview mirror. Everything seemed to be a reminder. Though maybe it wasn’t location-specific. Maybe it’s just what happened when you lost someone close to you. 

It was long past dark outside when Jess stepped through the door, blue vest in his hand. His dark hair was gelled and crazy. He kicked off his boots and a smirk covered his face when he saw her there. And no matter how conflicted she felt about him at the moment, a sense of relief filled her at the sight of him, and she couldn’t help but smirk back from her spot sitting up in his bed. She took her sketchbook from her knee, closed it, and dropped it on his nightstand. 

“Hi,” he said, putting his vest in the top drawer of his dresser. As he walked by the boombox, he turned it down slightly so he could hear her. 

“Hey, sorry. I didn’t think you’d get off until later. I stole your bed,” she replied, scooting up to the head of the bed as Jess sat down on the end. 

He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Well, I can assure you, there was no tequila involved today,” Ella said, crossing her arms over her Sonic Youth t-shirt. “Just didn’t wanna go home yet.”

“What’s up?”

She shrugged and clutched at her necklace with one nail-bitten hand. “Long story short: That rendezvous to Nevada Fiona and my dad took? They got married by some Elvis impersonator in Vegas and just...didn’t tell anyone until yesterday.”

She thought of the night before when she had, in a rage, called the diner to tell him. Jess had been the only one she wanted to talk to, the only one her heart was aching for. Instead, Luke picked up and told her Jess was out. 

Jess sighed, and put a hand on her jean-clad knee. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Ella ran her fingers through her messy hair and then took his hand in hers. She sat closer to him, until their knees were touching, but still she didn’t lock eyes with him. Jess could practically see the gloom radiating off her. Dark makeup painted her eyes. Black Doc Martens were discarded at the side of the bed. Her nails, polished in chipped black, were still bitten down. But, she managed a small smile. 

“It’s fine. I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Okay,” he said shortly, nodding. Finally, she looked at him and bit her lip. His face was drawn in fatigue.

Bringing her hand to his cheek, Ella’s gaze softened. He leaned into her touch. “Are you okay, Jess?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Seems like you’ve been working a lot. You haven’t been at school. I just...are you sleeping alright?” she asked, hesitant.

Jess did his best to straighten up, nodding. “Stevens, don’t worry. Luke just won’t let me keep the music on to sleep anymore. I’m still getting used to it.”

She nodded and kissed him, hearing the song switch in the background. “Okay, James Dean. Just checking.”

Clearing his throat to hide the flush in his cheeks, Jess cracked a smirk. Ella thought she saw something flash across his eyes, but she couldn’t identify it. For the first time since they started dating, there seemed to be a charged energy lingering in the silence between them. Without the music playing, Ella knew she wouldn’t have been able to handle it. She would’ve blurted out everything going through her head, but she refrained. Instead, she watched Jess’s eyes move to her sketchbook on his table, his grin widening. 

“Can I look, Miss O’Keefe?” he asked.

Pursing her lips, she let her worry fade and took on a teasing air. “Only if you don’t laugh.”

“Never.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	17. Out of Nora Ephron

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jess gets beaked in the eye and miscommunications follow.

Despite the chilly breeze, red blossoms lined the streets of Stars Hollow. Town square was fragrant and sweet, and Ella would have been lying if she said it didn’t lift her spirits. Though she wasn’t one to go all out for holidays, she wore heart-shaped earrings and a pinkish color on her lips. Valentine’s was not especially important in Stars Hollow, considering how many other times per year there was a celebration, but it received an adequate amount of fanfare. Her skin was perfumed with a gardenia spray her aunt had given her, and there was a slight skip in her step. It made her feel almost silly, to be excited for such a holiday. And she knew Jess wouldn’t care about it. She wasn’t expecting anything. But it was nice to for once not be lonely on Valentine’s. 

She waltzed into the diner, trying to hide the smile which played on her lips. Miss Patty was seated at the table by the door, and called to Ella before she even had a chance to hang up her coat and bag. Glancing behind the counter, she found both Luke and Jess to be working reasonably well together, and decided they could spend a couple more minutes without her help. After school, she’d stayed behind to help her art teacher hang some of her works for the open gallery they were having on Friday night. Late was late, no matter by how long. And she’d told Jess to explain it to Luke. The diner was rarely busy at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday anyway. She wasn’t sweating it as she might have in the past.

“Hi, Patty,” she said, leaning down to let the woman kiss her cheek. Ella didn’t even mind the red kiss-mark she knew would be standing out on her freckled skin. Fiddling with her necklace, she sat down across from Miss Patty. 

Patty smiled widely at the girl. “Hello, darling, how are you? How’s that man of yours?”

Blushing, Ella stole a glance at Jess, who was ringing up a customer. She wanted to roll her eyes at herself. “Fine. Everything’s fine. What about you? You’ve gotta have some fish on a hook for tonight? That’s what my grandma used to say.”

“You truly learned from the best,” Patty laughed, gesturing with her arm, draped in dark red fabric. “Oh, I do. José and I have some reservations. And then _ I’ll _ have  _ him _ for dessert.”

Hiding her face in her hands, Ella chuckled. If they were in the dance studio, she wouldn’t have felt so naked. But the diner? There was some strange instinct in her to keep a semblance of professionalism, even though most of the townspeople had bore witness to her vomiting down her front at the summer carnival when she was three. Old habits die hard. 

Raising her head to Miss Patty again, she wished her cheeks would cool. “Well, I hope you have a nice night. But, I’m off to sweep those chimneys now. Just let me know if you need me to fill in at all for the spring recitals.”

Patty nodded, offering the girl one last smile, and Ella made to leave. “You make sure Jess treats you tonight. All the keepers do.”

Saying nothing else, Ella smiled back and was still giggling when she went behind the counter. Tying her apron around her hips, she greeted Luke and Jess with a nod of her head. Immediately, Luke furrowed his brows at her. 

“What’s got you so happy?” he asked. 

She snorted a laugh. “I don’t know. What’s with  _ your _ Fred Mertz impression?”

“Who?” Luke looked to her blankly. 

“ _ I Love Lucy _ ,” Jess chimed in, refilling mugs of coffee. 

Ella smirked at Jess, knowing about his odd love of old black-and-white TV. Then, she turned back to her boss. “Don’t you have a lady friend? I figured you’d be at least a little more chipper.”

Luke grimaced. “Don’t call Nicole my lady friend.”

She raised her hands in mock surrender. “Fine. White flag. Continue with the curmudgeonry.”

Only rolling his eyes, Luke stepped around her to go take some orders. Sometimes he wondered how he didn’t see the relationship between Ella and his nephew brewing earlier. When Ella came back out from the back, her hands freshly washed, Jess laced an arm around her waist and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. Then, he licked his thumb and wiped Miss Patty’s red lipstick off her cheek. 

Ella scrunched up her nose and groaned playfully. “More Jess spit.”

Jess smirked. “Would you rather Luke ream you for not looking work-appropriate?”

Scoffing, she turned and leaned back against the counter so she could face him. “Wow, my  _ hero _ ,” she deadpanned. 

“I got you something,” he said, his smile turning more genuine. 

“For a Hallmark holiday?” she asked, confusion painting her face, though a smirk threatened to cross her lips. 

He rolled his eyes. “You’d be surprised, Daria. The lake after work?”

“You have no concept of weather. It’s gonna be freezing,” she said.

“I like to live dangerously. Haven’t you heard?”

“Whatever, James Dean. Sounds like a plan. I got you something too.”

. . .

Sitting cross-legged, Ella shivered. She certainly appreciated the poetic return to the spot where they’d decided to try going out, but it was still a Connecticut February. Their breath came out in whitish clouds. Icy breezes blew by them, smelling clean and fresh and cold. She heard geese fly overhead, and almost laughed. Shouldn’t they be south? The light had long since waned to blue darkness, but the moonlight reflected off the water and onto their faces. Ella’s mind wandered to the schools of fish below, the imagined mermaids. The taste of apple pastries, from a basket made by Miss Patty, filled her mouth, and smiled. Jess’s voice brought her back to her current reality, when they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, fingers entwined. 

“Where’d you go, Stevens?” he asked, watching her blink the fantasy from her eyes. 

Clearing her throat, she looked over at him and sniffed. “The past. Back when we weren’t developing hypothermia.”

He rolled his eyes. “What a talent for exaggeration.”

She snorted a laugh, then reached over to rummage through her shoulder bag. “Alright, jackass, let’s end the suspense, shall we?”

Smirking, he watched as she turned back around, a book in her hands. It was hardly a surprise, but his expression turned fond as he took it from her. He recognized the cover:  _ Desolation Angels _ by Jack Kerouac. 

“I can’t believe you don’t have this one,” she said, gesturing to the book. “Given that your Jack Kerouac fetish pretty much equals my Stevie Nicks fetish. I think you should look inside.”

“Oh, should I?” he teased, eyebrows raised. 

“I have a hunch that you should.”

Chuckling, he opened up the cover, and found a chunk of her messy cursive, dark ink against the weathered yellow page. 

_ Something else for my James Dean to sulk with. _

And below, he found a few poems, which he recognized as Dickinson from the many long dashes. He furrowed his brows slightly, and tilted his head at her in askance. 

“From  _ Final Harvest _ . They’re the ones you put notes beside, conceding that I was right about Emily,” she explained, smile wide.

Jess scoffed. “A gentle reminder of your superior tastes?”

She shook her head. “No, just the ones that make me think of you now.”

His heart started to beat faster against his ribs, and he swallowed down the feelings which rose in his throat. Before she could notice his scarlet blush in the dim light, he put a hand to her cheek and kissed her softly. 

“Thank you,” he whispered when he pulled away. 

“You’re welcome, Jess,” she replied, tucking a strand of hair which had fallen from her low bun behind her ear. A tiny smile on her face, she fiddled with one of her heart earrings.

He cleared his throat in the comfortable silence, reaching a hand in the inside pocket of his jacket. Averting his gaze, he handed her a modest set of charcoals, bought from the arts store three days earlier. In spite of himself, he felt nerves build up within him. He didn’t see his gift standing up to hers at all. 

A wide grin blossomed on her face, taking them from him gently, as though they were fragile. “Jess, this is fucking awesome! I’ve never had charcoals before!”

He shrugged humbly, a small smirk on his face. “I just figured...those might smudge a little better than your regular pencils. Or...not smudge? Shade? I don’t really know the names but-”

Placing a cold hand on the back of his neck, she effectively cut him off. She bit back a laugh; it was still rare to see him flustered. “Jess. I love them. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Kissing, they smiled against each other’s lips, and pulled away laughing. 

Ella smiled down at the charcoals again. “I can make my drawings even scarier now.”

“That’s the goal, huh?” he asked.

“Always.”

“Will I get to see some horror movie stuff at the gallery walk on Friday or did the school censor you?” he asked. 

She shook her head. “No, they let me have my artistic freedom.”

“Good. I can’t wait to see.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Mariano.”

“Too late,” he smirked, kissing her again. Just as the kiss deepened, a shiver rolled through her and she pulled away, eager to make out in the comfort of her own bedroom. 

“C’mon, let’s go someplace above freezing. Look at us, right out of a Nora Ephron movie,” Ella teased as she stood up, holding a hand out to him. 

He rolled his eyes, scoffing self-consciously as he grabbed her hand. “I never should’ve let that slip.”

“Can’t turn back now, Mariano.”

. . .

The key on her necklace was cold against her flushed skin. Fluorescent lights flickered above her, as she watched family and friends crowded around the works in the hallway. All of a sudden, she wished she could be serving coffee at the diner, comfortable in her apron. Instead, she stood before three of her paintings, and two of her drawings. They weren’t anything to write home about, and she was acutely aware of it. Her palms were sweating, and she was lost in her own thoughts when the art teacher, Ms. Menken, came up next to her. She was a tall, kind woman with black spiral curls and large brown eyes. Ella had been in her class all four years of high school, sometimes ate lunch in her room, and spent every spare moment she had working on her projects. It was her hiding place, her safe space, during school hours. She was never as comfortable at school as she was in the diner, not even in the art room, but it was a haven of sorts. 

“Have they shown up yet?” Ms. Menken asked, dressed in all paisley and jewel tones. She looked like she would fit in much better in San Francisco. 

Ella shook her head, leaning back against the white cinderblock wall. “No. I mean...my dad and Fiona...who knows? She said she wanted to ‘support me.’ And Adam could probably take it or leave it. My boyfriend should be here soon, though.”

Ms. Menken nodded, a doubtful glint in her eye. “Right. Mr. Mariano.”

Sighing, Ella ran a hand through her hair. “He’s a good person.”

A few more suspicious words were exchanged before Ms. Menken went on her way, Ella insisting she go mingle with the students whose families had already arrived. Jess was hardly a superstar among the Stars Hollow High faculty and staff, even the cooler members. Again, she stood alone, biting at her nails and looking over her shoulder at the artworks. Her favorite was a painting of a ghost, adorned with hydrangeas. It was the only one she’d wanted to put up, but Ms. Menken had encouraged her to flesh out the display a bit. By her watch’s time, it was half past seven when her father, Fiona, and Adam walked through the big swinging door. She couldn’t hide the look of surprise on her face. The show was set to be over at eight, and there was still no sign of Jess.

He’d seemed so excited to come, promised he’d show by half past six, during his break from the diner. She’d stood. She’d waited for Jess. And soon she felt silly, angry at herself for wanting him to see it. To be proud of her. Ella sighed as her family approached. At least they had come. Maybe they would feel like enough, no matter how much Jess was the only person she truly wanted there. 

“Ellie,” her father said, nodding slightly. He pulled her in for a rigid hug, which she reciprocated coldly. 

Fiona’s hug was far more affectionate, longer, with an added kiss on the cheek. It made Ella want to grimace, but she managed a smile at the woman, her new stepmother who was always trying so hard. Over the course of the last month, Ella had been attempting to make an effort with her, no matter how unpleasant it was. 

Adam had already wandered off down the hall, to take a look at the array of amateur art. He squinted at the abstract pieces through his thick glasses, analytical as ever. With Noah off to get a degree in history, and Ella probably bound for something humble in the humanities, Adam was the only Stevens sibling destined to make any real money. He was the one with the mathematical brain and boundless potential; he could end up as anything from an accountant to a rocket scientist. 

“Thanks for coming, guys,” she said, swallowing down the storm of emotions raging on the sight of their arrival. 

“We wouldn’t miss it, Ella,” Fiona said, beaming. The woman stepped back to view the paintings and drawings hanging on the wall. Each had her trademark mixture of flora and horror, and Ella could practically see Fiona fighting off her look of appall. She was the kind of woman who never wanted to watch sad movies, never spoke on taboo subjects, never faced a state of balanced reality.

Her father stood quietly, his hands in his pockets, saying nothing. But the look in his eyes was telling. Ella knew it hadn’t been his idea to come. But she thought she saw the tiniest bit of pride on his face. In all her life, she thought she’d never known exactly what her father was thinking. And probably never would. 

Five minutes of awkward conversation passed slowly, Ella’s eyes flitting to the door every so often. Eventually, Jess blew in, hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans and his gaze trained on the floor. A relieved smile crossed Ella’s face, but it fell instantly when he approached and lifted his head to her. His left eye was bruised deep purples and blues, scabbed at the edges. 

“Hi,” he said flatly as he came closer to her, gaze roaming over her work. “Jesus, Stevens, these are...amazing.”

“Young man,” Ella’s father began, dark brows furrowing, “what exactly happened with your face?”

“It looks  _ terrible _ ,” Fiona observed, disgust flashing across her features. 

Jess shrugged, nonchalant, and only went back to the art. Had her parents not been there, he would’ve been able to express what he felt. How seeing her paintings, alive with color, and her drawings, dark with the pain she felt, brightened up his shitty day so instantly. But there were too many eyes on him, his tongue tied with sheepishness. And he certainly didn’t want to talk about what had happened to his eye. 

Ella huffed out a breath in exasperation, waiting for an answer, but it never came. Her father took a step forward, a face she recognized. And the last thing she wanted was for him to make a scene at the show. Everyone already talked about her dead mother, she didn’t need them to know about her hothead father too. She didn’t care what they thought, but she certainly didn’t want to be the subject of their speculation. Instead, she put herself between her father and her boyfriend. She flashed a plastic smile at her father and Fiona, dragging Jess down the hall and into the art room by the sleeve of his jean jacket. 

“An accident at the diner today. Nothing major!” she called, hoping they bought it. “Back in one second!”

Luckily, there was no one else in the art room. Only the eyes of the figures painted across the walls, papers lining every available surface. She pulled him in by the first table, where she usually sat and worked. Dried paint covered all inches of the light, worn wood. 

“What the hell?” she demanded, arms crossed over her black floral dress. The one she’d put on special. Still casual enough for school, but dressy nonetheless. And she’d worn her good red lipstick. No matter how nervous she was about showing off her work, she’d still had some sort of foolish excitement swelling inside her. 

Jess sighed heavily. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh, you don’t?” she asked, eyebrows raised angrily.

He refused to look her in the eye. “No, I don’t. Look, I’ve already had a lousy day-”

“Really? So have I. I’ve been waiting. You said you’d be here by six-thirty,” she interrupted. 

Running a hand over his mouth, Jess shook his head softly. “Elle, I’m sorry. Something came up. But can’t I just go back out there? I didn’t get to-”

“No.”

“No?”

“Jess,” she said, dropping her eyes to her boots, “my dad isn’t gonna get off your back with your eye like that. He’s gonna end up screaming, you’ll end up screaming back, and I don’t think either of us wants to give all the other families free dinner theater.”

Jaw set tightly, he crossed his own arms, mirroring her defensive stance. “You want me to go?”

“Unless you tell me what happened.”

“Didn’t realize you needed to know every detail of my day, Nancy Drew,” he snapped.

She shook her head. “Jesus, Jess. That looks like it hurts. Now’s not the time for that Holden Caulfield bullshit. I’m your girlfriend. Just tell me.”

He was silent, eyes narrowed in frustration. 

“Fine. Fuck it. Just go,” she yelled, gesturing in annoyance. Her cheeks were flushed red, and a crease formed between her brows. Fire burned in her hazel eyes. “I was waiting for you, Jess.”

And with that, she stormed out the door. Jess stood with his hands in his pockets, face drawn in shame and dejection. 

. . .

Instead of biting her thumbnail, an attempt to ward off old habits, she chewed at the eraser of her pencil. Jess was on dish duty, but there was a lull in the customers around mid-morning and she knew he would reappear in the front soon enough. Saturday was danish day, but they were all gone by ten. Rory and Lorelai had just popped in with armfulls of shopping bags. Ella sketched mindlessly as she made conversation with the two of them, pointedly ignoring most of the business around her. Even Luke, not known for his emotional intelligence, could sense the tension in the air. Her page was covered with vampire bats and women with bites on their necks. She’d caught a midnight showing of  _ The Lost Boys  _ up sleepless the night before. 

“So, Bender’s not talking?” Lorelai asked, commiserating. 

Sighing through her nose angrily, Ella nodded. “Apparently, I’m just not worthy of such information from Mr. Hyde.”

“Well, maybe it’s finally time for our  _ Thelma and Louise  _ bit?” Rory offered, sipping from her steaming mug. 

Ella tried to smile weakly. “I wish. But I’m working a double today.”

Lorelai faked a gag. “My condolences.”

“Damn the man,” Ella said, shaking her head tiredly.

Soon, Rory and Lorelai were back to their conversation of weekend plans and left with final sympathetic looks at her. Ella went on drawing, but eventually the tip of her pencil broke off with the intensity of her work. Sighing heavily, she tossed the pencil behind her and snapped the sketchbook shut. 

“Careful, Mickey Mantle. You’ll take someone’s eye out,” Jess snapped as he came around behind her, grabbing his book and sitting on his stool.

She groaned under her breath. “Shove it, jackass.”

“Eloquent.”

Rolling her eyes, Ella crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face him. “Right back at ya. What a chatty fucking Kathy.”

At that moment, Luke stepped in, having overheard snippets of the interaction warily as he helped a customer check out. His breathing was huffy as he spoke to them, hands on his hips. 

“Alright, Ella, on break.  _ Now. _ ”

Chewing on her bottom lip, she unlaced her apron and threw it over the hook in the doorway of the kitchen. “Okay. Fine. Maybe talk some sense into Jake LaMotta, formerly known as your nephew!”

“LaMotta?” Luke asked, but Ella was already donning her coat and bag. 

Jess rolled his eyes, not looking up from his book. “ _ Raging Bull _ .”

Luke muttered something under his breath, then grabbed Jess by the collar and pulled him into the stock room. “Alright, Petey the Dog, when did you get in a fight with Dean?”

. . .

Water sloshed against the sides of the boat as Jess and Luke floated along Larson’s Lake. Lying in wait for the swan which had beaked him in the eye a night earlier, Jess held a ladle tight in his hand. The air smelled sickly sweet with the early-blooming flowers. The last couple days had gotten above freezing, and the flowers were making a premature appearance. A cold front would roll in soon enough, and the flora would die all over again. In the back of his mind, Jess thought it would be something Ella would read a poem about, draw a picture of. 

“So, how’d Jake react to your eye last night?” Luke asked, breaking the silence.

Jess sighed. “Not great, Doctor Phil.”

“Guess it wasn’t so good before, anyway.”

“She told him some accident happened at the diner. I don’t know.” Jess shrugged, gaze roaming over the greenish water. 

Nodding, Luke still didn’t look away from his nephew. “You know shutting her out isn’t gonna help, right?”

Jess said nothing, a scowl twisting his features. 

But still, Luke went on. “Keeping things from her is pointless. It’s only gonna drive her away.”

“Didn’t wanna talk.”

Luke frowned at Jess’s flat tone of voice. “Look, when you’re with Ella, it’s all the way. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she can hold a grudge like it’s her job.”

Snorting bitterly, Jess still didn’t look over. 

“With this girl, it’s all or nothing, do or die. Hiding things will get you nowhere,” Luke continued. “And she doesn’t need you. She  _ picked  _ you.”

Jess scoffed in exasperation. “God knows why.”

“ _ She _ knows. That’s all that matters,” Luke said. “If you really want her, you’ll swallow your pride.”

. . .

She had to admit, the charcoals were wonderful, no matter how pissed she was at Jess. Shadowy figures covered the pages of her sketchbook, black smudges littering her small desk. Lavender candles perfumed her air, and she shut out the rest of the world, Lou Reed crooning through the speakers of her record player. Her hair was damp from a shower after her shift, fragrant with shampoo. The rest of the day was only marginally better than the beginning. When she got back from break, Jess hadn’t been there, hadn’t shown up by the time she got let off. Luke wouldn’t say much, but she wasn’t surprised. Though she tried not to let her mind wander into dramatic territory, there was still fear coursing through her. Anything was possible. Maybe Jess would pick up and leave again? It had been their first big disagreement, and though it wasn’t nearly as bad as a car accident, Jess still had a loose canon history. And Ella had a history of being left in the afterboom, not just by Jess. 

At first, she thought the branches of the oak tree were blowing up against her window in the late winter wind. But, as the small  _ dink _ s continued to sound, she sighed, wiped her hands free of the charcoal on a wet washcloth on the desk, and got up to see what it was. It wouldn’t have been the only time a bird had come up and started pecking against the window, begging to come in. She’d only obliged once as a child before learning her lesson. Instead, she found Jess, sullenly mysterious as always as he threw pebbles from the gravel driveway against her window pane. 

Biting back a chuckle, she opened the window and leaned out. “Y’know this is a one-story house. Doesn’t quite have the same Shakespearean effect as it would if I lived in an upstairs.”

He shrugged, a weak smirk on his lips. “I tried.”

A long moment passed, a crease between Ella’s brows. Wind whistled past them and she saw Jess hunch his shoulders to shield against it. With a final sigh, she stepped back from the window and called to him. “Alright, Romeo. If you’re coming in, come in.”

Nodding, he hoisted himself up and through the window. She could feel the scar on his hand when he grabbed her own for support. 

“You really think I’m a Romeo?” he asked breathlessly, stalling as he shut the window. 

She crossed her arms, let a little smile form. “In all reality, you’re a Mercutio, but I’ll give you Romeo tonight for the pebbles on the window bit.”

“Well, I appreciate that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He sighed heavily, standing near the window with hands in his pockets. Eyebrows raised expectantly and arms crossed, Ella waited. 

“Alright, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said, avoiding her gaze, “but only if you promise not to laugh.”

She nodded gravely, confused but not letting it show. “Sure. I promise. Cross my heart.”

Sighing again, he finally looked at her. She could see his bruise had yellowed slightly, but was still mostly just dark and angry. Jess ran a hand over his mouth once before he spoke, hesitant. “I was throwing a football with a buddy and he-”

“Jess, I’m gonna stop you right there,” she said, putting a hand up. “I thought you were gonna tell me the truth?”

“That is the truth!” he insisted, suddenly defensive.

Ella scoffed. “No, it’s not. You’d never play football. I doubt you’ve spent more than two minutes with a football in your hands your whole life. And there’s no one in Stars Hollow you’d throw a football with, and certainly no one who you’d call a ‘buddy.’”

His shoulders sagged in defeat, and he shook his head. He heard Luke’s voice in his head. Swallowing dryly, he rubbed at his mouth again. 

“Alright,  _ fine _ , you know Larson’s dock?” 

“Yeah?”

“Well, I was walking by there on my way to the art show and...I got attacked by a swan.”

She tilted her head, eyebrows knitting together. “ _ What? _ ”

“It hangs out there, and it saw me walking by, minding my own business and it just...beaked me! Right in the eye!” he exclaimed finally, exasperated, as though choking out the words pained him. Embarrassment crept hotly up his neck and face. 

There was a long moment of silence, Ella processing the words in her head. Once, then twice, she opened her mouth to speak. She chewed on her bottom lip. Then, she took a couple slow steps toward him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Initially, he didn’t react. But, soon, his own arms laced around her waist and they held each other in a tight embrace for what felt like several minutes. His words were muffled into her shoulder when he finally spoke, and Ella couldn’t quite make them out.

She pulled away from him, hands placed gently on his shoulders. “What’s that?”

“When you saw my eye, you were the only one who didn’t immediately assume I got in a fight with Dean.” He let his gaze linger on her for a long moment, watching a wide smirk bloom on her face. 

Ella shrugged. “Well, when I think Jess Mariano, I’m much more likely to think ‘lover’ than ‘fighter.’”

“You are?”

“I am,” she replied, nodding, a smile still present.

“Hey, you promised no laughing,” he told her pointedly, seeing her amused expression.

“I’m not! I’m smiling. I never promised no smiling.”

He narrowed his eyes playfully but said nothing more. 

“Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, sheepish once again. “I’m really sorry for being late to the art show. I didn’t know what to do about my eye and I knew your dad might come. And I know you were so excited and  _ I  _ was so excited to see your name up there-”

“It’s okay, honey,” she said, shaking her head to dismiss his worry. 

Tension released from his muscles, and a smirk crossed his lips. “You’re the ‘honey’ here, Stevens.”

Again, she shook her head. “Not tonight. This thing of ours is a two-way street.”

Ella brought a hand to the side of his face, careful to avoid the bruising, and he leaned into it. A crease of concern formed between her eyebrows once again. 

“Must hurt like hell, Mariano,” she muttered, assessing the injury up close for the first time. 

“Yeah,” he sighed, giving a teasing pout.

“Bet I could make it feel better,” she said quietly.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, eyebrows shooting up. 

Ella nodded, then brought him closer to place a gingerly kiss on his purpled skin. He could barely feel it, her soft lips light as a feather. Then, she went on to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, everywhere but his mouth. 

“Think you’re missing a spot,” he told her, wicked smirk returning.

“Ah, of course,” she said, then kissed him on the lips deeply. 

His hands went to her hips, and she felt herself grow light headed with pleasure, sparks of joy making her entire being buzz. Each time she kissed Jess, a real kiss, she could feel it everywhere. And before meeting him, she’d thought ‘weak in the knees’ was an exaggeration. Not so. A rustle of activity in the house, voices, a TV turning on in the living room, her brother’s door shutting, brought her back to the present moment. They separated and Jess couldn’t help the look of disappointment on his face. Ella chuckled, then went to tug on her boots. 

“To be continued,” she assured him. “For now, let's go to the apartment. Rent some  _ Empire Records  _ perhaps?” 

Jess nodded, his heart returning to a normal speed. On the way over, he’d felt nauseous with nerves. The sight of her smile was finally calming his body and his mind down. “Only if you do the dance moves with them.”

She rolled her eyes, picking up her coat from where she’d tossed over the back of her desk chair earlier. “You’re already hurt. And you and I both know my moves could be lethal.”

  
“I’m willing to risk it.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	18. KISS v. Phantom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College decisions are released, and Ella gets another chance to practice her spontaneity.

Awakening on the Gilmore couch, Ella squeezed her eyes tightly shut against the morning light. Of course Dean had chosen to break up with Rory the first day of spring break, upon hearing about her acceptance to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. After her shift, Ella had rushed over and been a shoulder for Rory to cry on, along with Lane. Buckets of cookie dough ice cream sat empty on the coffee table, tissues strewn around, and Ella’s makeup had been smeared around her face in her sleep. She was alone. At some point, Rory had gone to bed, she supposed, and Lorelai would be upstairs. Glancing down at her watch, she swore under her breath. It was half past eight; she was meant to be at the diner thirty minutes earlier. 

Slapping lightly at her own cheeks, she spread her eyes wide. Taking in a deep breath, she hoisted herself up off the couch and tugged on her shoes, then grabbed her bag by the door. She almost forgot to say goodbye, her hand on the doorknob, before she ran back through the kitchen and into Rory’s bedroom. Rory’s back was to the door, asleep on her side. Ella placed a hand on her shoulder and shook slightly. 

“Hey, Ror? I gotta go to work. See you later when you get your coffee, alright?” Ella whispered, watching Rory stir.

Rory grunted some sort of sleepy response. 

Smirking, Ella ran back out the door and left the house. The late March morning was dewy and almost too fresh as she raced across town. Her boots were nearly slipping off her feet, her hair flying loose behind her. As she passed the gazebo, she ran nearly straight into Kirk, who had recently taken over as mailman. The most inconvenient time of the century, he’d ended up mixing up several peoples’ college acceptance (or rejection) letters. Though she knew she was late for work, she couldn’t help the slightly sick excitement in her stomach. 

“Kirk!” she shouted as he tried to pass her. “Could you give me my mail, please?”

He faced her with a stony expression. “How many times do we have to go over this, Ella? I’m not permitted to give you your mail unless we’re standing on the address property.”

Crossing her arms, she looked down at her shoes and shook her head. Breathing out a frustrated sigh, she put a polite smile on her face. “Kirk, please. Just this once. Please do me this favor.”

Kirk blinked at her, unrelenting.

“Four rhubarb pies,” she wagered, narrowing her eyes at him.

He was silent for a moment, looking like one of the Village People in his mailman getup. She wondered how many of his clothes were regular and how many were various uniforms. “Six pies. By next weekend.”

“Deal,” she smiled, putting a hand out for him to shake. 

He shook back, then shuffled through the many envelopes in his huge satchel. Fighting the urge to tap her foot, she watched him for what felt like an eternity. A throb was just beginning to form behind her eyes when he finally pulled out an envelope. A grin came to her face as she saw the return address.

“Thank you!” she chirped, immediately off again in the direction of the diner. 

“Six rhubarb pies by next Saturday!” Kirk yelled after her, then went on ambling through town. 

She felt a bit like Charlie with his golden ticket, despite having no idea what the content of the envelope would entail. It was the difference between a two-year degree and a four-year degree, community college and a public university. She didn’t really care much either way, but Southern Connecticut State was her top choice. Realistically, she wasn’t excited for the results, she was only excited for the suspense to end. Her dimples shone on her freckled cheeks as she made it through the front door of the diner, the bell above jingling happily. The diner was relatively packed, and she was reminded again how late she was. Luke’s face was stony and gruff, and Jess smirked over at her. 

“Rough morning, Stevens?” he asked, taking in her smudged mascara and wild hair.

Ella rolled her eyes playfully and came around the counter after hanging her belongings, the envelope in one fist. But she had trouble getting out all the information between breathless panting. “I got the letter!”

“Southern Connecticut State?” Jess asked, eyebrows raising and smile turning genuine. 

Swallowing dryly, she nodded, holding it up for him to see.

“You didn’t open it yet?” he asked in surprise.

“Been a busy morning, jackass,” she said, shaking her head at herself. As she prepared to rip it open, Luke came over from the register and cut the moment short. 

“What time were you supposed to be here, Ella? The same time for the last three years? Is it eight-thirty?” he said, voice laced with anger and sarcasm. “Oh, right, it’s eight o’clock. Every single Saturday for the past three years!”

Face falling, Ella nodded along. “Luke, I’m sorry. I had to chase Kirk down for my Southern Connecticut State letter. And I spent  _ all night _ with Rory. Dean broke up with her after she got into Harvard and-”

“ _ What? _ ” Luke interrupted. “The bag boy broke up with her?”

“Yeah.”

“ _ When? _ ”

“Yesterday, but-”

Before she could even finish the sentence, Luke was calling back an order to Caesar for chocolate chip pancakes, breathing huffy and frustrated. He rambled on about how much he hated Dean, how he would never be allowed back in the diner, and other such dramatic threats. Watching with brows furrowed, Jess and Ella eventually locked eyes again. 

“Should I wait for him to calm down?” she asked Jess, looking back down at the envelope. 

Jess shook his head. “Could take years. I’d go for it if I were you.”

“I don’t think you could handle being me.”

“You opening it or not?”

Nodding slowly, she took in a deep breath and ripped it open. She took out the crisp sheet of white paper, text in dark ink and signed at the bottom, her heart in her throat. 

Ella began reading aloud, Jess standing across from her expectantly. The other patrons in the diner were more or less completely enraptured by Luke’s tantrum. 

“ _ Dear Miss Stevens, I am pleased to congratulate you on your acceptance- _ ”

“You did it! You’re in!” Jess cut her off, gesturing excitedly as he spoke. It was odd to see him so earnest in his emotion, especially standing behind the counter at the diner. 

A slow smile spread on her lips, as she stared almost blankly at the words before her. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Eventually, she folded the letter back up and looked up at him. He had to stop himself from tilting his head at the expression on her face, almost false in its happiness. The smile didn’t reach her hazel eyes. 

“Congrats, Stevens,” he said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

She didn’t even blush like she normally would, instead only wrapping her arms around his neck. After holding him in a tight embrace for a moment, she cleared her throat and pulled away, an artificial smile still present. 

“Thanks,” she said, putting all the contents back into the envelope and sighing softly, all at once acutely aware of the environment around her. “I guess I should get to work.”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered, confusion painting his face. Before she went to put the letter back in her bag, he brought a gentle hand to her arm. “Are you okay?”

“I always am.”

. . .

A long day of comforting Rory, serving coffee, and dealing with the flurry of townie activity brought Ella to the bridge. She held a copy of  _ Little Women  _ in her lap, the book she’d read probably hundreds of times before. Eyes roaming over the words, she could practically hear her mother’s voice. Soft and sweet, and always passive. Her voice always made Ella feel so simply safe. She could smell the Pond’s Cold Cream her mother had once worn. Crickets sang around her, spring finally having sprung. The air was cool but humid, charged with the possibility of rain. 

Sat trying to read, she couldn’t help the tears that spotted the pages. She’d tried going home after her shift, but felt too antsy inside her own tiny room. Knowing she’d be bound to live there for at least a couple more years. And she took the book from the top drawer of her dresser, telling Fiona nothing more than that she was going out, and she wouldn’t be back for dinner. The moon had risen between the clouds. A pit of dread had been sitting in her stomach almost all day, since she’d opened the letter. For just a moment, she had been happy, relieved to have gotten into her top choice, but then the reality hit. It was real. College. Living at home. She wiped at her cheeks, sniffling. So much work, and she still felt so far away from anything resembling her goals. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate, the tears blurred her vision. Blowing out a shaky breath, she turned the page. 

“Hey, Daria,” she heard to her left. Startling, she snapped the book shut and blinked quickly. With the back of her hand, she wiped away the tears which had spilled over once again. 

“James Dean,” she sighed, not having to look over to recognize him. “Sneaking up on people, again, huh?”

Shrugging off the bite in her voice, he came to sit down next to her, close enough for their shoulders to brush against each other. Luckily, she didn’t flinch away from his touch as he’d been half-expecting her to. Clearing her throat, she swallowed down her flush and hoped he couldn’t see the shine in her hazel eyes. 

“Thought I’d find you here,” he drawled, looking over the lake. “You seemed quiet today. And you rushed out right after your shift. Are you feeling okay?”

Uttering a bitter scoff, Ella let a smirk cross her face. “Yeah. I’m great. I’m going to Southern Connecticut State, after all.”

“Yes. You are,” he said flatly, wondering what could be bothering her. “And?”

“I don’t wanna talk, Jess,” she snapped, shaking her head at herself. More tears welled up in her eyes, and she looked away from him, tossing her book to the side in slight anger. 

“Okay,” he nodded. And he sat beside her, saying nothing, listening to the sounds of nighttime and watching the lake.

Then, after a long silence, Ella glanced over at the book, back at the water: “My mom used to read  _ Little Women _ to me. Before bed. And then I read it over and over. Even before she died, I was just always...I was always reading it. I don’t know why.”

Jess wasn’t lost on the shakiness in her voice. “Huh.”

“Yeah. And she…” she paused to sigh, shaking her head again. She stared down at her lap, wringing her hands together anxiously. “She lived here her whole life. She was a great mom and everything but...she would just lie down and take it. Anything. Life would come at her and s-she was...sweet and kind...but she just never…”

“Bit back?” Jess ventured quietly, watching at the way her face contorted in the moonlight. He could see her fighting back the sobs, silent tears falling down her face in streaks. 

Ella nodded sadly. “Exactly. I love her so much. But I don’t wanna be her. I don’t wanna be stuck here my whole life.”

“You won’t be, Eleanor,” he said, starting to understand, trying to catch her gaze. She simply refused to make eye contact with him. 

She gave a humorless chuckle. “That’s what Lorelai said. But no one really knows anything, do they? I think they’re just lucky. Lorelai and Rory. And I’m not Rory. I’ll never be Rory.”

“What do you mean?” he chimed in, running a hand up and down her back, remembering how her touch had felt the night he cut his hand.

“They think things can work out,” she continued. “I mean... _ fuck _ . Rory got into  _ Harvard _ and  _ Princeton _ and  _ Yale _ . And her grandparents are basically a bottomless pit of money. She could have anything she wants. And instead she spends the whole day crying over her dumbass boyfriend. And everyone just drops everything to make her feel better.”

Brows knitted together, he nodded slightly. Jess thought back to the morning, Luke’s tirade about Dean while Ella held her future between her fingers. 

She spoke through gritted teeth as angry tears kept rolling down her face. “And I  _ hate _ being jealous of her. I mean...she’s one of my best friends. And I don’t mean she doesn’t have problems. I don’t want a pity party. Of course she has problems! I mean...her dad wasn't in her life for so long. But...he came back, y’know? He came back for her. And everyone in this town loves her. Sometimes, it’s like she lives in a different world. Where everything gets fixed with coffee and sugar and her grandparents’ money.”

Speaking with her hands, she tilted her head and looked up at the sky. Maybe in an effort to dry her eyes against the breeze. She cleared her throat, hoping her voice wouldn’t sound so wobbly. Embarrassment burned in her stomach, but she couldn’t help as the words poured straight from her mind to her mouth. 

“And she gets to go wherever she wants. She gets everything she wants. And she gets Lorelai. She gets a mom who she’s best friends with, who would never leave her. And my mom…” 

“She didn’t wanna leave you,” Jess said firmly.

Heaving a big sigh, she swallowed thickly. “She didn’t want to. But she did. She was...um...born with this heart thing? And one night it just...got her. I went to bed one night with a mom and I woke up without one. Just like that.”

“Jesus,” he muttered. Though his family wasn’t exactly a greeting card situation, he couldn’t imagine losing his whole world forever, literally overnight.

“Yeah,” she sighed, voice exhausted. “And I didn’t cry at the funeral, but sometimes alone...I’ll get upset about it and I’ll think: ‘Okay, this is the last time. Just be sad about it one more time and your heart won’t be broken anymore. This is the last time.’ But it never is. It always comes back. I think I’ll always...have a piece missing, I guess. And today...it just came back. Because everyone was there for Rory about Harvard and Yale and Dean. Lorelai stayed up almost all night with us last night. And  _ I _ haven’t talked to my mom since I was fourteen. I’ll never talk to her again.

“And now...my dad can’t even look at me. Not exactly like he was such an involved father before. But every time he looks at me, all he can see is her. I just...I just look so much like her. It’s not like I could blame him. I wouldn’t wanna have a doppelganger of my dead wife living in my house either.”

“Well, you didn’t ask for a  _ Freaky Friday _ situation,” he said.

It earned him a small giggle, and he flashed her a tiny smile.

“It’s not your fault, Eleanor.”

“I know,” she nodded, then took in a big breath. “Fuck. And here I said I didn’t wanna talk. I’m sorry...I didn’t mean to tell you all that. And I know everyone has problems. I’m not special or anything. Lots of people have dead parents. But..no one talks about it. Not in Stars Hollow. Everything just needs to be happy here, but everything reminds me of her. No one...no one ever talks about her. I’m sorry, Jess, I don’t mean to-”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry over,” he told her, shaking his head. 

She chuckled weakly, wiping at her nose. “And I  _ hate _ crying.”

“I know.”

“Especially in front of people.”

“I know,” he repeated softly, finally locking eyes with her. His mouth was set in a thin line. All the things he wanted to say were stuck in his throat. Instead, he only listened. She needed to talk about it. She needed someone who wouldn’t brush it off, who wouldn’t get uncomfortable. Who would just hear her. 

“But I just can’t stop crying,” she admitted, her voice breaking. 

She put her hands over her face in shame and guilt, weeping quietly. Each time she got upset about her mother, she reminded herself of how much worse it could be. From what little she knew, she could gather Jess had never even met his father. She couldn’t blame Jess if he just walked away, or yelled at her for taking what she had for granted. At least she had two parents for as long as she did. It was a vicious cycle in her head, making her dizzy.

Jess felt his heart do a twist as she crumpled, and acted only on instinct. He enveloped her in his arms and her head went to his shoulder, wetting his jacket. Rubbing circles over her back, Jess held her against the chilly wind.

“You wanna push me in the lake?” he asked, breaking the silence. “It’s cathartic, I hear. Might make you feel better.”

Ella uttered a watery laugh. “No, but thank you for the offer.” 

. . .

Blondie blasted through her speakers, and she huffed at herself as she tried to finish her makeup. She was having trouble making her eyeliner work, eventually deciding to just smudge it out, falling back on grunge as she usually did. Getting up to grab her boots, she gasped audibly when she heard a knock on the window. Rationally, she knew it was Jess. Who else regularly climbed through her window? But, still, in the back of her mind, she worried about hypothetical murderers. Occasional viewings of  _ Dateline _ did nothing to subdue her mistrust of the world at large. Taking a boot in her hand by the laces, she walked over, ready to fend off a potential assailant. Her shoulders relaxed when she pushed the curtains back and Jess stood out in the gloomy morning with a smug smirk. 

The window screeched as she opened it, and she leaned out with a grin. “Did Luke send you to avoid a do-over of yesterday? Because, by my clock, I’m not late for another forty-five minutes.”

Jess shook his head. “Good guess, but no. Are you, by any chance, still practicing your spontaneity?”

She furrowed her brows. “Occasionally. But, today, diner duty calls.”

“Actually, I got us both the day off.”

“What?” she asked, chuckling through her words. “Fuck off.”

“So eloquent, Daria. But I’m serious. We’re on spring break, so I switched with Guillermo for Tuesday.”

“Right, but hate to break it to you, I’m the other half of this duo. And I’m Luke’s favorite waitress, as we know. It’s my natural charm, of course,” she quipped, forearms resting on the window sill.

“Told him you had a migraine last night. He figured you’d need rest,” Jess explained, shrugging. 

Ella shook her head in disbelief, smile turning to a smirk. “Migraine being code for major meltdown?”

“Semantics.”

She scoffed. “Really? We’re both off?”

“ _ Really _ ,” he said, shaking his head at her suspicion. “Free as birds. You need some notarized documentation?”

Snickering, she shook her head and glanced over her shoulder. “Well, did you have any particular plans in mind? Or was this just spontaneity for the sake of it?”

“Well, last time you were in New York, you didn’t get the full experience. Thought maybe we could go to the Met, Miss O’Keefe?” Jess shifted his weight on his feet, a familiar uncertainty welling in his stomach. “I brought my car. We’ll be back before anyone will suspect where we went.”

Ella shook her head again in pleasant shock, giggling slightly. “If you can promise me no felony charges?”

“Misdemeanor at most,” he said, chuckling.

“Alright,” she said, stepping into her boots. “Let me just grab my jacket. You’re the fucking best, Mariano.”

. . .

“ _ Yikes _ .”

Jess raised an eyebrow and looked over at her as she shuffled through the center console of his car, searching for a CD. She’d been exploring the selection. They didn’t often need a car, and when they did, Ella was always driving. She just preferred to be behind the wheel, and also, more importantly, his car was pretty much a death trap. But he’d insisted on driving to New York, paying for the gas himself. Face falling, he saw the  _ Phantom of the Opera _ soundtrack in her hands. As a native New Yorker, he’d had Broadway shoved in his face his whole life. It wasn’t his fault if some of it stuck. He kept it in the car with various other road trip music, away from his uncle’s wandering eyes. He’d forgotten it was in there, along with a couple other soundtracks, from both movies and musicals. 

A flush crept up the back of his neck. “Oh, that’s my mom’s.”

“Bullshit,” she laughed, immediately going to pop it in the CD player. She shook her head slightly as the first piano chords came through the speakers. “You like musicals, huh?”

“ _ No _ . Jumping to conclusions much, Nancy Drew?”

“C’mon, Jess, I know a swan beaked you in the eye, I know you work at Walmart, it’s cool if you’re a theater geek,” she said, shrugging with a wide smile. “I mean, I like  _ Phantom of the Opera _ too. It’s got a ghost, sort of. That’s all I can ask for.”

Sighing heavily, Jess bit his bottom lip. “My mom had a bunch of soundtracks in her car when I was younger. Hers were eight-tracks, but whoever had this car before me put in a CD player. I just...carried on the tradition.”

“Whatever, tough guy,” she teased. “Is there a home video of little Jess singing along out there somewhere?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Methinks the man doth protest too much.”

He rolled his eyes. “KISS t-shirt. Need I say more?”

“Touché,” she said, eyes lingering on him playfully for just a moment longer as the music started up. 

Fighting off the urge to sing along, she watched Jess’s eyes, trained on the road. They’d been driving around an hour, good natured arguments over movies and music, through the misty morning air. The highway was largely empty, Sunday morning drivers at church or sleeping in. Ella almost couldn’t believe she was bound for a place dedicated to master works of art. She was about to see Van Gogh with her own eyes. The thought alone was enough to make her heart skip happily. 

“Jess?”

“Hm?”

She shifted a little in her seat and her fingers went to clutch at her necklace. “Thanks for listening last night. I’m sorry I was such a freak about everything.”

Jess sighed through his nose. “No reason to be sorry. I get it.”

“You don’t need to be nice about it,” she continued, pursing her lips. 

“What are you talking about? I’m  _ always _ an angel,” he scoffed, a wicked sparkle in his brown eyes. When she looked unamused, he shook his head a little. “Eleanor, it’s fine. There is  _ nothing _ for you to be sorry over.”

“And you don’t pity your sad sack girlfriend?”

He scoffed. “My girlfriend’s a badass artist. She doesn’t need my pity.”

“Very true,” she nodded, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “Seriously Jess, thank you. I can’t believe you’re taking me to the Met.”

He shrugged, nonchalant. “I don’t do things I don’t wanna do.”

. . .

Standing before Van Gogh’s “Flowering Orchard,” Ella felt a foreign lightness spread throughout her being. She had so many favorites, many of which she’d seen in the last few hours. Monet, O’Keefe, Picasso. But there was something about Van Gogh which always stuck out to her, a perspective so different from her own. She who saw everything with a hidden darkness, an ulterior motive. So rarely did she work in lively color. Ella couldn’t even fathom seeing such a vibrance in what was so often a gloomy world. It took her breath away to see the piece in person, the canvas Van Gogh himself had touched. She could feel her heart reaching out to the painting, a connection to the past. It was what she loved most about art, writing, music. Impersonal love letters sent out to the public, from creator to creation to audience. 

Ella didn’t even startle as Jess’s arms laced around her waist, and she leaned back against him. “Hey, James Dean.”

He smirked. “Hey Daria, hate to break it to you, but we should go if we wanna be back before they call the FBI on us crazy kids.”

Clicking her tongue in disappointment, she looked down at the watch on his wrist and nodded. “One more minute.”

“If you insist.”

She chuckled. “Can you imagine seeing the world this way?” 

“What do you mean?” he asked, voice in hushed tones with other viewers milling about near them. But, with his arms around her, Ella so calm and in her element, it felt like a private world. Where parents didn’t break promises and eyes didn’t pass premature judgement. 

“Just…” she began, pausing to gather her thoughts, “he could see things with so much color and life and...I could never look at things this way. Maybe I’d be a better artist if I wasn’t such a cynic.”

“Oh, I think cynicism is a benefit in all areas of life,” he said.

“You sure about that, Nietzche?”

“Way I see it, there’s cynicism or there’s cutting off your own ear.”

She scoffed. “No middle ground?”

Jess shook his head. “No one becomes an artist unless they have to.”

“Deep, but not yours. That’s from  _ White Oleander _ , thief,” she said, a smug smirk on her face.

“The point still stands, no matter the origin.”

“I know, but...it must have been so intense for him to live that way. To...I don’t know. I wonder if the torture is worth it to be such a genius,” she thought aloud, a wistful glaze in her eyes. 

Biting his lip, Jess’s smirk grew. Despite how much Ella told him the only reason for her perfect grades was her insane work ethic and stellar organizational skills, he knew it wasn’t true. She was smart in ways she didn’t ever acknowledge, thought about things in ways which would never even occur to him. Of course he could see the beauty in all the art they’d encountered, and in the painting in front of him, but she could  _ feel _ it, the way he felt the words in his books. And she could look at poetry and music as a linguistic collage, art in itself. It never surprised him how fond she was of modernism. Her mind was something he could never quite grasp, a complexity he could only admire. She would always be smarter. His heart felt so full, watching her watch the painting, he almost felt silly. Each day he got more sure. It was love he felt for her.

. . .

Reddish brake lights glowed against the dark highway. Ella could still taste the salt on her lips from the street food they’d had for both lunch and dinner. The windows of the rusty, screeching car were cracked slightly open, letting in the fresh, chilly spring air. Her blonde waves blew back from her face as the CD ran out. Without a word, she ejected the disk, put it back in its case, and started shuffling through the other albums. 

“Jesus, Mariano,  _ how _ have you never told me you like  _ Rocky Horror _ ?”

He sighed but didn’t have time to retort before she pointed a finger at him.

“We  _ are _ going to a screening at some point. And I, of course, will be dressing up,” she said with a smile, not even looking over at him as she found a new CD. Looking over, he saw a flash of red and black on the case as she opened it up. He couldn’t hide his tiny grin as he turned back to the road.

“As long as I don’t have to,” he shrugged, heart fluttering in his chest with pleasant excitement as she put the disk in. 

Ella reached her arm over and placed a gentle hand on the back of his neck, leaning deeper into her seat. Shivers went down Jess’s spine at her touch, and the opening chords of “Untitled” by Interpol. Neither of them said a word, but the soft smile never left Ella’s face. She remembered his hands on her waist the first time they kissed, the warm tingling in the pit of her stomach. Notes in books and drunken evenings, stitches and pianos, paintings and shoulders to cry on. Ella glanced over at him, could see the lights of the nighttime reflected in his brown eyes, and felt as she never thought she would. So strangely whole. 

“Jess?”

“Yeah, honey?”

The words almost left her lips, she could taste them on her tongue, but she bit them back as her heart began racing. Instead, she breathed in, fresh air and the smell of pine. 

“Do you wish your angel of music would hide no longer?” she teased.

He rolled his eyes and his voice held no emotion as he spoke. “I don’t know, Stevens, do you wanna rock and roll all night? And party every day?”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	19. Pretty Gertrude Stein

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To congratulate Jess for an award, Ella gets him a lucky bouquet, and arguments over the future ensue.

A cozy, aged smell filled the bookstore, aisles lined tightly with weathered pages. Ella ran a finger along the ancient, dusty spines. She didn’t have a massive budget, exactly, but they’d stopped in partially because of the Edgar Allen Poe decorations. The author’s fan society had begun rolling into town the day before, and all the Stars Hollow businesses were taking advantage of the possibility for sales, the bookstore only one of many. Sighing heavily, she pursed her lips and decided she should move on to the next shelf. There, she found Jess with a couple dystopian novels in his hands.  _ Brave New World _ ,  _ Fahrenheit 451 _ . He was on a masochistic kick, as always, but instead of heartbreak it was now the fate of the world. 

“I’ll have to give you  _ The Handmaid’s Tale _ next. Probably scarier than both of those combined,” she said, gesturing to the books in his hands as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

Jess shrugged. “Not everyone reads things for the terror factor, Morticia.”

“Well, not everyone can handle it,” she quipped, smirking. 

He chuckled, then turned away from the various volumes and held the books to his chest. “You ready to go?”

Ella nodded.

“Really? Not even the Poes are striking your fancy?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her empty hands as they made their way to Andrew at the register. 

“Trying to save up. Textbooks and whatnot.”

“Very wise of you, college girl,” he said, nodding at Andrew as he put his choices on the desk. 

She breathed a sigh through her nose. “Besides, master of horror or not, Poe was still a creep who married his thirteen-year-old cousin.”

“Fair enough,” Jess agreed, digging in the pocket of his jeans for some crumpled dollar bills. 

“But, when you consider the time period-” Andrew began as he placed Jess’s books in a paper bag, but Ella immediately cut him off and raised a hand.

“His wife was a  _ child _ who was a victim of oppressive patriarchal norms. I’m not even entertaining this conversation, Andrew. Good luck with the crazies this weekend,” she said, bidding him goodbye as soon as Jess had the bag in his right hand, grabbing his left and leading him towards the door.

Jess smirked proudly at her as they exited the store into the April evening. Squeezing her hand, he pressed a kiss to her cheek. The air was still slightly warm from the sunny afternoon, even as the pinkish evening came. Ella breathed in the night and glanced over at the town square. The gazebo was empty below the twinkling lights. She and Jess were set to study for the evening, with Jimi Hendrix on the record player. Though they both were aware the night would probably end in distraction.

“You wanna hang out tomorrow?” she asked. “We could go to the movies or something? Or we could watch those fake Poes butcher ‘The Raven’ at Patty’s?”

Jess shrugged. “Actually, I’ve gotta go to Shangri-la.”

“Really?” she asked, eyebrows furrowing. “I thought they didn’t schedule you for Saturdays anymore?”

“The exception that proves the rule.”

Snickering, she stopped walking and turned to face him with a smirk. “If you’re mixed up in something, you can just go ahead and tell me, Scarface.”

He rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Daria. I just…”

“What?” she asked, face falling into a frown of concern.

Heaving a sigh, he finally locked eyes with her again. “I’m employee of the month and I get two hundred dollars for going to this stupid ceremony.”

A wide smile blossomed on her face, and she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him, hands winding into his hair. Jess paused in surprise for a moment, then sunk into the moment with her. His skin tingled beneath her fingers, and he felt her lips turned upwards against his own. Pleasant giggles bubbled from her lips as they separated, though she kept her palms on his shoulders. 

“That’s great, Jess.”

He shook his head humbly. “It’s not a big deal. I’m only going so I can get the money.”

“I’m serious, Mariano. I’m really proud of you,” Ella said earnestly.

“Thanks,” he replied quietly, cheeks tinted pink, gaze cast downwards.

“You’re welcome. You’re the fucking best.”

She planted one last peck to his lips before grabbing his hand again. There was a moment of comfortable silence before she nudged him playfully with an elbow. 

“So, what time’s the ceremony tomorrow?” she asked.

Narrowing his eyes at her, he shook his head slightly. “No way.”

“C’mon, James Dean! I’ll sit in the back.”

Sighing again, he rolled his eyes. “ _ Fine _ . If you promise not to bring ridiculous balloons like you did for Rory’s birthday.”

She scoffed. “Of course not.”

“You gotta promise.”

“I promise. Cross my heart,” she said, kissing his cheek. 

. . .

Three knocks sounded on the door, and Jess finally pulled himself away from the  _ Twilight Zone _ episode on the TV near the kitchen table. The Sunday afternoon crowd chattered in a monotone hum down below, and the smell of burgers filled the apartment. Sighing, he ran a hand through his ungelled hair and trudged over to the entrance. A small look of surprise crossed his face when he saw Ella, in a faded green dress and her battered converse, hair falling loose around her face. He hadn’t seen her since the ceremony the previous day, after which he had picked up a shift. Luckily, she had sat quietly in the back, alongside Luke. She’d had time to give him a quick peck on the lips in congratulations before he had to go move stock. 

He couldn't help but be rendered silent when she told him how proud she was. It made nauseous butterflies rise in his stomach and up his throat, and a blush spread on his face. Often the way she made him feel was new and pleasant, but when she praised him it was undoubtedly an uncomfortable feeling. So foreign he couldn’t decide whether it was positive. 

“Hey, Mariano,” she greeted him, nodding slightly. “Do you have a vase?”

“What?”

She shrugged, smirking. “Well, I got you these flowers,” she said, bringing a bouquet of red roses from behind her back, “but I’m concerned now that you won’t have a vase.”

He couldn’t help the doubtful laugh which escaped his lips. “You...got me flowers?”

Ella sighed through her nose, then brushed past him into the apartment, placing the flowers on the table and searching through the cabinets. Standing on her tiptoes, Jess watched her dress rise up, her legs in full view. He bit at his lip, brows furrowed as he tried to make sense of the situation. 

“Since I promised no fanfare at the ceremony yesterday, I thought I’d give you something today. And I know you have a hatred of balloons, so flowers seemed like a natural option. But now that I’m here I’m worried about the vase situation.  _ I _ certainly can’t take these flowers back to my house; they’ll die within a day! I mean, why do you think I only have cacti? I can’t keep anything else alive!” 

Jess, eyebrows raised, nodded along with her rambling, amusement growing on his face. His hands were shoved in his pockets. Eventually, Ella gave a frustrated huff, crease between her brows, and took a beer stein from the cabinet near the sink. She filled it with tap water and placed it down on the table, wiping her hands on her dress and tucking her hair behind her ears before going to work on the bouquet. 

“Can I have some scissors?” she asked suddenly, locking eyes with him again.

“Oh...yeah,” he said, grabbing some from his desk. After handing them to her, he leaned against a kitchen chair on his palms. 

Ella found her eyes flicking up to the TV a few times as she cut the bouquet open and trimmed the stems of the roses diagonally. A dying man dealt masks out to his family, which would end up disfiguring them all in the end. “I love this episode.”

“You like all the macabre ones.”

“But of course,” she said, smiling over at him for a moment. 

“I can’t believe you got me roses,” he said slowly, a smirk still present.

She shrugged. “Why not? I mean, it’s no two hundred bucks, but I just...thought you deserved them. A rose is a rose is a rose.”

“Huh.”

“And I didn’t go full Lloyd Dobbler with the boombox outside your window, so you’re welcome.”

He chuckled breathily. “Thank you.”

After arranging them to her liking, Ella stepped back and regarded the stein. When she decided it was good enough, she balled up the crinkly clear plastic the bouquet had been wrapped in and threw it away. 

“Pretty Gertrude Stein of you, Stevens,” he said, still slightly flabbergasted at her move. 

Again, she shrugged, hands on her hips. “A little saccharine, but it seemed fitting. And I got you the bouquet with thirteen instead of twelve. My mom always said those were lucky.”

“But you don’t believe in luck.”

“No, but I think it’s good to cover all your bases.”

A full smile broke out on his face, and he wrapped his arms around her waist, bringing her in for a long kiss. Pulling away from her, Jess kept his smile. “And you say I’m the romantic.”

Ella rolled her eyes at him. “If I bought you all the bouquets in the world, it still wouldn’t match your love of Hemingway. The bigger Hemingway fan is always the bigger romantic. It’s a universal law.”

“I disagree wholeheartedly.”

“Of course you do.”

“But thank you,” he added quietly.

“You’re welcome,” she replied.

. . .

The Replacements played over the boombox, Ella on the end of the bed and Jess leaned up against the wall at the head. Golden, dusky light streamed in through the windows of the apartment. Ella’s history textbook sat open in front of her crossed legs, as she scribbled on a notebook in her lap. Biting at her thumb nail, she glanced up at Jess. He wrote something in the margin of his Huxley novel, already nearly finished. It made her want to roll her eyes; she could never even come close to matching his reading speed. A long afternoon of making out with  _ The Twilight Zone _ as background noise had bled into an evening of studying. Ella almost always had various homework in her bag, in case of a random study session at Luke’s corner table. 

“Jess?”

“Hm?” he asked, eyes still on the words. 

Hesitating for a moment, she put down her pencil and ran her fingers through the ends of her hair. “Are you...going to school?”

Brows furrowed, he marked the place in his book and tilted his head at her. “What kind of a question is that?”

She sighed, trying to formulate the right words. “Just...we don’t have any classes together and I’m always in the art room during lunch. Your manager mentioned something about you working forty-five hours a week yesterday...and you’re always so tired.”

“Jeez, Big Brother,” he snapped. “Need my alibi for a specific date and time?”

She scoffed, doubling down. “Fuck, Jess, I just wanna make sure you’re not working too much. I mean, if you don’t graduate, you can’t stay with Luke anymore.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m glad,” she shot back. “Forgive me for not wanting my boyfriend to end up homeless!”

“I’ve got it under control.”

Nodding doubtfully, she sighed again. “Fine. But if you need help or-”

“Stop it, Eleanor. I don’t need you to worry. I don’t need your help. I think I can handle my cursive practice and my arithmetic,” he deadpanned. “If I need help,  _ Mickey Mouse Clubhouse _ will be a satisfactory supplement.”

Her jaw tensed and she bit the inside of her cheek. Then, so quickly Jess could barely even register what was happening, she was packing up her stuff and over by the door, tugging on her shoes. 

“You can be such a dick sometimes,” she said, shaking her head to herself. 

“Taking your dramatic exit now, Norma Jennings?” he asked, his voice dripping with angry sarcasm.

Licking her lips, she tucked her hair behind her ears in frustration. “Maybe I’ll go to the library and study, so I can graduate and get outta this town someday. And not think about how all the work I’ve done the past four years is some joke to you. Holden fucking Caulfield.”

“Elle, I didn’t mean it that way,” he sighed, getting up from the bed, ready to run after her if necessary.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Then how’d you mean it?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I just...I’m doing fine! If I need to catch up, I will. All I need to do is pass! You can stop worrying!”

“You can’t stop me from worrying, Jess! It’s what I do!” she insisted, gesturing wildly with her hands. “If Luke kicks you out, what are you gonna do?”

“He won’t kick me out!” he replied, voice raised. “I’ve got school under control. So I take a few shifts, who cares? It’s not your problem!”

“I just…” she began uneasily, shaking her head. “You would tell me? If you were falling behind?”

“Yes.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, still obviously annoyed. “ _ Really _ ? If you were one step from not graduating, you would actually tell me and let me help you?”

Jess rolled his eyes. “My god, you’re like a broken record! I would tell you!”

“I don’t believe you.” 

“Why does graduation have to be such a big deal, anyway?”

“Because it is!” she shouted back. “I know you don’t like it, but if you don’t graduate, you won’t have a place to live! Why can’t you just grow up and realize it?”

Brows furrowing, Jess took a step back at the accusation. “What? Grow up like you? End up getting some bullshit job I don’t even like so that  _ maybe _ ,  _ someday _ , I’ll end up where I wanna be?”

Ella scoffed. “At least I have a plan! At least I can actually handle thinking about the future! I mean, Jesus, Jess, bad things happen and you deal with them! You don’t just avoid them, and run away, and wait for them to solve themselves!”

“Getting to be valedictorian doesn’t make all your problems go away, Eleanor! They’re still here, in that house you never wanna go home to, where you’re trapping yourself for the next four years! I hate to break it to you, but no amount of sad music is gonna change that!”

Biting the inside of her cheek again, she looked down at her shoes. A charged silence hung in the air before she looked back up at him with fiery eyes, though full of sincerity. “You really wanna get kicked out of here?  _ Fine _ . Fuck it! But, God, Jess, why can’t you just talk to me? Tell me the truth? What are you so afraid of?”

  
Heaving a sigh, Jess tried to come up with something to say. He ran a hand over his mouth, searching his mind for an answer, a witty retort, an accusation to deflect from the core problem, but nothing came. A blank drew in his mind; he was speechless, looking back at her expectant gaze. 

When she realized he was done with the argument, shutting her out completely, she gave one last roll of her eyes. Her shoes were still untied as she left the apartment, bounding down the stairs. Jess waited for a moment, pondered going after her, but didn’t. If she hadn’t let that last question slip out of her mouth, he would have. He would have run after her down the street, found a way to convince her he knew what he was doing, he was sure of it. But he knew then that he couldn’t fool her. She could see right through him. Instead, he switched the music to some angry screamo, cranking the speakers up as far as they would go. He flopped down onto his bed, bringing the pillow over his head to block out the world, focusing only on the ear-bleeding music. The stein of roses sat alone on the kitchen table, stagnant and unchanging in the unhappy air. 

. . .

Notes of “Für Elise” drifted from the dance studio out into the town square. Ella could hear it, making her feel nostalgic, as she sat reading Dorothy Parker in the gazebo. The Poe society packed the diner, having been forced to leave the Independence Inn after a fire the night before. Though she had tried more than once to get behind the counter, Luke told Ella it was already too crowded with Sookie having taken over the kitchen and brought the inn employees. She’d already done all her homework, in preparation for an evening of work, so her forced freedom was proving difficult to fill. 

After a couple hours of sketching angrily in her room, Stevie Nicks on the record player, she decided she was too moody to face Fiona. Her stepmother was humming country music in the kitchen, making her tuna salad. Usually, she could stomach the small talk. But as she was still fuming about Jess beneath an outer layer of indifference, it was ultimately too dangerous. She didn’t need to add another screaming match to her recent hits. The night fell chilly as dinner time approached, but the twinkling lights offered enough, so she could still see the words on the page. Even if Fiona was upset she didn’t show up for the awkward, sit-down meal, Ella knew her father didn’t care. It would be easier to deal with. 

The soft music floated around her, Mrs. Rothschild apparently taking advantage of the Poe crowd off for dinner to practice in solitude. Ella thought of the piano bench, the girl with the short red hair and vibrant blue eyes, who now danced on some stage in New York City, tuition paid with family money. Before meeting Veronica, Ella had known she found both men and women beautiful. After all, her first fictional crushes were a tie between Kevin and Winnie from  _ The Wonder Years _ .

But she hadn’t thought of kissing Veronica before it happened, and when it did, she felt some piece of her heart falling into place. Even Rory and Lane didn’t know she was bisexual (a word she hadn’t known before reading it in a biography about Virginia Woolf). She wasn’t exactly scared of backlash, or open criticism. But she knew Stars Hollow well. She knew there were lingering eyes and judgmental whispers. She had decided it would be easier to label herself when she got away, got to a city where she could be whoever she wanted. Sometimes she wondered if she felt so out of place in her hometown more because of her mother, or because there was a part of her she couldn’t fully embrace there. If anyone asked, she would tell them, but no one ever thought to ask. She wasn’t ashamed, but she certainly wasn’t forthcoming. 

Only Jess knew that part of her. Her mind wandered to the night she’d played “Rhiannon” for him, the way she’d decided on a whim to tell him the truth about her first kiss. For some reason, with Jess, it was easy. It was comfortable. She’d never met anyone who understood her the way he did, who knew what it was like to be out of place, to feel like there was something missing. No matter how much she loved Rory or Lane, or even Lorelai, she knew they wouldn’t quite get it. But Jess did. Jess always did. Breathing out a sigh, she tried to swallow down her thoughts of him and concentrate on the poetry in front of her instead. 

Fiddling absently with her necklace, she tucked her legs underneath her and wished she had brought more than just her jean jacket. 

“You’ll catch a cold if you stay out here too long, Stevens,” Jess drawled at her side, stepping up into the gazebo with an unreadable expression.

Startling slightly, Ella looked up from her book with a scowl. “You have no concept of weather, but thanks for the concern. It’s duly noted.”

“Anytime,” he said, taking a seat next to her, leaving a careful distance between them. They both stared ahead, into the bustling diner. 

“Pretty chaotic in there, huh?”

He nodded. “Luke kicked me out.”

“And Lorelai slept in the apartment last night, right?” Ella asked dryly.

“Yeah.”

Uttering a quiet scoff, Ella shot him a momentary look. “Now the whole town’s gonna know you snore.”

“Avoided the press as long as I could.”

Ella quietly hummed in acknowledgement, nodding. An unusual awkwardness filled the space between them, and it took Jess a long moment before he mustered the courage to venture a look over at her. Her hair, pulled back messily, glinted with gold beneath the lights. Arms crossed over her patterned dress, she looked chilly and defensive. He could feel words choking his throat, but he swallowed them down and turned back to the diner. 

“Are you gonna talk, or can I keep reading?” Ella asked, having felt him staring and fidgeting. 

Blowing out a long sigh, he rubbed at his mouth. “I understand what you said.”

“Good,” she said shortly. 

He chewed his bottom lip, brows furrowing in frustration. “I just...I can handle it. And I’m sorry for what I said.”

“Okay. I’m sorry too,” she replied half-heartedly. As much as she wanted to lose the tension in her shoulders, to let the topic drop, she couldn’t find it within herself. “Look, I’m not trying to...you’re eighteen, you can make your own choices, whatever. But I care about you and I want you to, one: have a place to live, and two: be able to have money. You and I both know how much it fucking sucks to not have money.”

“I  _ do _ have money. I get it from working the way I do,” he argued.

Ella nodded slowly. “I know. Just...I want you to have everything you need. To write your novel and do whatever else, y’know? And I’m gonna worry, no matter what.”

“Believe me, I know,” Jess said, cracking a tiny smirk. Words from Lorelai echoed in his mind, and he gave a hesitant shrug. “But I know what I’m doing. You just have to trust me.”

She offered a small smile back. “Okay, I’ll try.”

“I’ll try too,” he said, bringing an arm around her shoulders. “And I want  _ you _ to have everything you need, Stevens. Some studio with  _ very _ organized art supplies and horror-movie-caliber sketches.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“It will be. I really am sorry,” Jess said. “But I want your someday to not just be a someday.”

“I know,” she sighed, bringing her head to his shoulder. “I’m really sorry, too, Jess.”

“Glad we sorted that out then,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her hair.

Ella cleared her throat and nodded against him. She leaned into him, warmer with his closeness. “Me too.”

Running his fingers gently up and down her arm, Jess took a deep breath and felt his heart relax. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	20. Oliver Twist and Little Orphan Annie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As graduation approaches, Ella and Jess paint a room, and attend a party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning: This chapter contains discussions of physical/emotional abuse. Please proceed with caution.*

“ _How_ have you never painted a room before?” Ella asked, tiling her head at Jess as she guided his hand, armed with a roller, up and down. 

A creamy white streaked the wall in stark contrast with the old color, giving off pungent fumes. Her one window was opened all the way, letting in the late May air. Rain poured on Stars Hollow, a thunderstorm which brought humidity and lightning. The sky had faded to a dark greenish-gray, a dull bruise. But Ella felt her spirits lifted high. Lorelai had paint leftover from redoing the Independence Inn following the fire, and she’d given it all to Ella. Sometimes, she didn’t know what she would do without the Gilmore matriarch. If she had to stay in her room during college, the least she could do was have a new mural. Three of the walls would be soft eggshell, while she had yet to decide the exact design of the one behind her bed. She had a lot of purple to use, and was thinking something floral. But the base coat was all they needed for the day. 

Jess had volunteered rather than been recruited, but it quickly became clear to Ella that he had no idea what he was doing. His first few strokes were patchy at best, textured at worst. She was thankful Luke hadn’t gotten a new apartment back when they were thinking of moving. The plan then had been to have Jess paint it. Ella could only imagine the quarrels which would have ensued. As she guided Jess’s hand, she maneuvered around the mattress in the center of the room, piled high with almost all her belongings and surrounded by layers of plastic to protect the carpet. 

“We can’t all be Michelangelo,” he quipped, frustrated with his clear incompetence. In theory, painting a room evenly wasn’t hard. But, a perpetual renter, he had zero experience. Theory was proving much different than practice.  
  


Ella snorted a laugh. “Jess, it’s not the Sistine Chapel. You’re painting _one_ wall with _one_ color.”

“Easy for you to say. You paint all the time.”

She rolled her eyes. “You didn’t have to help. Just don’t apply too much pressure. We’ll have to do a few coats, but that’s the only way to make it look good.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jess grumbled as she stepped away from him, going to her own paint tray and prepping her roller for the wall next to his. 

“I know you will, James Dean,” Ella said, more sincerely than he was expecting.

Smiling a tiny smile, Jess glanced over his shoulder at her. Her hair, held away from her face in a black bandana, fell down her back. The old Pixies t-shirt she wore rose up as she reached high on her tiptoes, exposing the dimples in her back, above the waistband of her worn jeans. His stomach buzzed with pleasant butterflies as he turned back to the wall. 

“You write your speech yet?” Jess asked, breaking the comfortable silence. 

Groaning playfully, Ella shook her head more to herself than to Jess. “No. Not quite ready to pretend to have some inspiring message about the last four years. Also, I’m pretty sure my speech is going to be the last one. I’ll have to follow whatever those student government kids have to say.”

“Well, graduation is still three weeks away. You’ve got some time, Miss Valedictorian,” he said.

“One of _four_ valedictorians,” she reminded him, her tone dismissive. “With the lowest GPA of all four.”

“How many times, Eleanor? It’s still a huge deal.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she said, breathing a soft sigh. 

Before Jess could speak again, a quiet knock sounded on the door. Ella’s father didn’t wait to be invited in before he opened the door. Both of them turned and Jess could almost see Ella’s body turn rigid. Jess bit his lip again and put his paint roller down in his tray as Jake Stevens began to speak. 

“Hey, Ellie, how’s it going in here?” Jake asked.

“Fine,” Ella shrugged, gazing around the room. “Should be done by tomorrow or day after next.”

Jake nodded. “Good. Don’t want the house smelling like this forever.”

“Right,” she said. “I just figured...white will be a better color for a guest room when I move out, and with the pink gone only one wall will need painting by then.”

“But that won’t be for a while, right?” Jake said, eyebrows raised. 

There was almost a warning tone in his voice, Jess thought. In the interactions he’d seen between Ella and her father, it was never blatant. Jake never said anything overtly cruel or malicious, but it was in the way he said things. Like he knew there was nothing his daughter could do to get out from under his thumb. Like he could forever bind her to the role her mother used to fill, the chores and the emotional labor, while still ignoring her as if she didn’t live in the room right next to his. It was such an odd dichotomy. 

Jess could definitely understand having a parent who was often neglectful, but there was a strange, controlling element to Jake’s behavior which Jess had never experienced himself. Many of Liz’s boyfriends (and sometimes fiancés, and sometimes husbands) were addicts with less than friendly personalities. But they were never around long enough to establish true manipulation of him. Instead, Jess would fight with them (more often than not, to protect Liz) until they got fed up and left. Then, Liz would blame him for driving the guy away and the cycle would begin again. The last time he’d gotten into a scrap with one of her men, punches had been thrown. Jess had even landed a few himself, but his fighting back proved to be the final straw for Liz. Instead of watching the man walk away from her, she’d sent Jess to Luke. But, of course, she’d moved onto the next one by the time Jess returned to New York following the accident with Rory’s car.

Those men, their main weapon was fear. But Ella’s father wielded guilt instead. He used his words, how he said them, and small actions disguised as discipline, instead of his fists. He loomed over his daughter coldly. She didn’t often talk about it, but Jess knew Ella’s father had slapped her at least once as a child, for talking back to him at the dinner table. She’d made the comment off-handedly, as though it was nothing. As though all parents kept their kids in line using such methods. And she claimed her father hadn’t touched her in anger since, that things were getting better between them, that her father had a hard childhood of his own and he had learned to parent in an abusive environment. But touch wasn’t always the vehicle for household violence. A family could have some kind of love without it being a healthy kind of love. It wasn’t dramatic, he didn’t witness any blow-outs. And though Jake always had a beer in hand when he was home, Ella only shook her head when Jess brought it up, told him her father never got blackout drunk anymore. Not since Fiona came around. But the subtle, warning tone was always there. And Jess could see shades of it every time Jake and Ella spoke to each other. 

“Yeah,” Ella said, offering a weak smile. “Not for a while. But I’ll be thanking myself in four years.”

“Smart,” Jake agreed, nodding. Then, he turned to Jess: “And how are you, young man? No college plans I hear?”

“No,” Jess said, shaking his head. “Personally, I think I’m better equipped for trades.”

Again, Jake nodded slowly, keeping his eyes on Jess. “I suppose only time will tell, won’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, it will,” Jess said shortly.

Jake smiled thinly. “Well, I can’t wait to see the room when it’s done. As you were, kids.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ella said, picking her roller back up as her father shut the door behind him. 

Swallowing dryly, she took a second to listen to the rain outside. She flexed her free hand once and then got back to work, humming a Fleetwood Mac song under her breath. Jess watched, hesitant to say a word. Slowly, he began to paint again, rollers squeaking quietly against the walls. 

“I hate it when he calls me ‘young man,’” he said, trying to keep his tone light. 

She scoffed. “Wow, I’m shocked.”

“Yes, I’m very unpredictable,” he quipped. “There you go, type-casting me again.”

“Hey, I can’t help it if you’re James Dean back from the dead,” she teased, smirking over at him. “Speaking of which, are you too cool for the party next weekend, or are you gonna come watch Lane play with me?”

Running his free hand over his mouth, Jess locked eyes with her, looking over his shoulder again. “Depends. Are we gonna go make fun of everything like we’re gonna do at prom?”

Ella nodded. “Everything except the music. You can come be a Grinch with me, just like at the diner on Christmas.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“And you don’t get to complain about my driving at prom. It’ll be a station wagon instead of a limo, since your rust bucket is gone,” Ella reminded him. Three weeks prior, Jess had walked out of the diner one morning and found his car gone. He had heard no leads about it since.

He sighed through his nose. “Whatever you say, soccer mom. I’ll get the tickets this week.”

“Okay, but I’m paying you back for mine.”

“If you insist,” he shrugged.

“I do.”

His eyes lingered on her a moment longer as she reached high on the wall. Sidestepping his painting tray, he brought a gentle hand to the small of her back and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Scrunching up her nose, she chuckled and told him not to distract her. And he went back to work laughing.

. . .

Though there were rips in her fishnets, Ella felt an added, confident skip to her step as she passed town square. The Spring Fling festival banner was still hung over the gazebo, though it had ended with a parade the night before. Bunches of flowers still lined the streets, beginning to wilt in the heat of May. In the back of her mind, she worried vaguely about her dark eye makeup melting off in the sunshine. Her Doc Martens squeaked on the tile floor of Luke’s as she waltzed in, breathing a small sigh at the gust of cool air conditioning. She smoothed down her black floral dress, blowing loose strands of hair, which had fallen from her half-up, half-down look, away from her freckled cheeks. 

Only a few customers peppered the red tables, and no one occupied the counter. Luke scribbled on his pad as he stood behind the ancient register, preparing to close. 

“Hey, Luke,” she called, smiling slightly at him. 

He mumbled a greeting to her, not glancing up. Ella scoffed out a laugh at his disinterest, and didn’t bother asking if it was alright before going behind the curtain and trudging up the stairs. He’d been acting off lately, and though she wondered if it was something to do with his lawyer lady friend, she knew better than to ask. She’d spent the afternoon before visiting Julie in New Britain, and he seemed to have cooled off at least a little since she’d last seen him. Granted, it had been a Thursday, inventory day. One could always expect a fair amount of open hostility from Luke on inventory day. Ella could hear the sound of the Sex Pistols before she even neared the apartment door. Only knocking twice, and assuming she wouldn’t be heard over the music anyway, she stepped into the apartment. Jess sat up in his bed, reading _Dead Souls_ , brows furrowed in concentration in spite of the noise. 

Smirking, she came over and turned down the music to half volume. He only looked up to see her as Johnny Rotten got quieter, and blinked in surprise at her. She set her bag shoulder bag down on the worn wooden floor and sat at the end of the bed, legs hanging off the side. 

“Hey, James Dean,” she said. “More light reading?”

He shrugged. “Seems that way.”

Clicking her tongue, she shook her head to herself. “I can just never stomach the Russians.”

Finally, one corner of his mouth quirked slightly upward. “So unrefined.”

She shrugged. “Maybe someday you’ll convert me.”

“Someday.” Jess put his book on the nightstand and ran a hand over his mouth. “You look ready to rock and roll all night and party every day.”

Rolling her eyes, Ella ignored the (millionth) KISS joke and cast her eyes down to her outfit once more. “Thanks. I was going for sort of a Winona Ryder thing.”

“Aren’t you always?”

“That I am,” she smiled, standing from the bed and holding a hand out to him. “We gotta go if we want to see the full set.”

Sighing through his nose, he grabbed her hand to pull himself up and nodded.

“Oh, and I finished my speech today,” she said as she watched him go over to the dresser to change out of the shirt he’d worn on shift and into his Metallica tee. 

“Huh.”

“If you wanna read it before graduation, I can give you inside access,” she teased. “Or you can be surprised at the actual ceremony.”

“As long as it doesn’t mention me,” he muttered as he changed and checked his hair in the mirror.

She snorted a laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mariano.”

Watching his reflection in the mirror, she saw a half hearted smirk cross his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. He ran a hand over his mouth again as he appraised his reflection, and Ella’s brows furrowed in concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He turned back to her and gave an unconvincing nod. “Fine.”

“Really? We don’t have to go if you’re not okay, y’know. I mean, I want to see Lane play, but in general I think parties are meaningless excuses for teenage debauchery.”

Jess didn’t look back at her when he spoke, turning off his music and going over by the door to grab his shoes. “We’re going. I know how much you wanna see Lane.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she noticed the storms brewing in his brown eyes. His face was slightly pale. He looked exhausted. When he straightened up, shoes on, she went over and put her hand to his cheek.

“Do you feel sick?” she asked, feeling him lean into her touch though he wasn’t feverish. “You were fine Thursday night, but you closed alone. Did you get to sleep afterwards? I know sometimes if you work too late you can’t get to sleep-“

“Eleanor,” he cut her off, his voice tired, “I’m _fine_. Let’s just go. Please.”

Raising at a hesitant brow at the shortness of his tone, she bit her tongue and nodded slowly. He certainly didn’t seem fine, but they would be late if they waited much longer. And Lane was counting on her being there. Jess grabbed her hand and led her out of the apartment. And when he felt her give his hand a reassuring squeeze, he had to swallow down the myriad of emotions which rose in his throat.

. . .

Lane’s band, which still had yet to earn a name, got through the first set with little to no bumps in the road. The living room was stuffy, a suburban wet dream filled to the brim with drunk students. An ever-present smile shone on Ella’s face as she watched her friend banging it out on the drums, despite how much she disliked the stickiness of the atmosphere. She knew how much Lane had always wanted this, her own band, her own instrument. As they finished up with their first thirty minutes, having announced an intermission, Dave Rygalski walked by her, Jess, and Rory with a nod. Ella was glad Jess and Dave had been getting along so well. If Jess was going to stay in Stars Hollow for the foreseeable future, he had to have some other friends besides her and Rory. As soon as Lane hopped up from her drums, she came squealing over to the three of them in excitement, engulfing Rory in a hug. However, before she had too much of a chance to babble about the set, Dave whisked her away for a private conversation. 

Rory smiled over at Jess and Ella weakly when she saw Dean nearing their vicinity with his new girlfriend, Lindsey, and quickly retreated to another room. Ella leaned back against Jess, who stood behind her, near the pristine couch, with his arms wrapped around her waist. She could feel his breathing against her back, smell his pine scent. And she thought for the first time in a very long time that the future might not just be survivable, but bright. Soon, she would be a high school graduate, be (tentatively) majoring in history, which had been her second-best subject in public school, still working at the diner. It wasn’t what her wildest dreams called for, but it certainly wasn’t bleak.

Jess’s breath was hot on her neck as he spoke into her ear, which was still buzzing from the loud music and the crowd. “You wanna go?”

She shook her head against his chest. “I think we should stay for the second set. And I haven’t even gotten a chance to talk to Lane yet. She’ll probably need my sage wisdom after whatever she and Dave are talking about.”

“Elle, I don’t-”

Before he could finish, he saw Dean and Lindsey heading directly for them. Ella could feel Jess’s muscles instantly tense, his hands tightening around her own, his face stony. She knew how the feud started, with Dean trying to pull Jess away from a fight when Jess first came to town. But, then again, she had once gotten him off of Peter Smith. Only then, he didn’t take a swing at her like he had at Dean. If Jess hadn’t changed so much since then, and Dean hadn’t been such an asshole to Rory, she probably would’ve been on Dean’s side. But in the few times she’d heard Jess and Dean speak, she knew there was fault on both sides. And she was inclined to align with one of her best friends and her boyfriend before some possessive dick from Chicago.

“Hey, guys,” Dean began, his hand in Lindsey’s grasp as they ambled over. “Have you seen Rory?”

Ella actually liked Lindsey. They’d been acquaintances in high school (though in a class of only about seventy kids, one was usually acquaintances with everyone else), and had always thought her very sweet. And she could rock the bleach blonde look like no one else in their grade. It was certainly a style choice Ella could admire. 

Ella shrugged. “She’s around here somewhere. Why?”

“Just thought I’d say hello,” Dean replied, eyes searching the room for his ex-girlfriend, while his new girlfriend stood at his side.

“How sweet of you,” Jess said, venom in his voice. 

Ella cleared her throat and pivoted the conversation before Dean could shoot anything back. “Yeah, anyway, you guys like the band?”

“Oh, they were great. I can’t say I recognized a lot of the songs, though,” Lindsey smiled, her voice light. 

Nodding, Ella attempted a generous smile back. “Don’t feel bad. Lane knows every song in the English language. And some in pretty much every other language, too. There are bound to be some deep cuts in their repertoire, if she has any say in the set lists.”

Lindsey chuckled. 

“So, Ella, I heard you’re going to Southern Connecticut State?” Dean asked, continuing the small talk despite the thick tension in the air. 

Still, Ella forced a plastic smile on her face. She knew Rory wouldn’t want her causing any trouble, as the heartbreak was still so fresh. And she’d been able to master her people-pleasing artificiality after her years of serving Taylor at the diner. 

“Yeah. Managed to score a spot.”

“Me too,” Dean said. “What are you going for?”

“History.”

“Oh, cool. I’m thinking maybe business, but I’m not entirely sure yet.” Dean had at some point focused his attention away from Ella and onto Jess, who still had his arms wrapped around Ella, watching the awkwardness silently. He just wanted whatever small town, false polite nonsense which was necessary to be over. “What about you, Jess?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re not going to college or anything, right? Seems like you’re not going to school at all anymore, anyway.” Dean narrowed his eyes at Jess, and a momentary staring contest ensued. 

Disentangling himself from Ella, Jess decided not to humor Dean’s attempt to rile him. “I’m gonna go check out the state of that bathroom line,” he muttered to Ella before trudging off. 

Brows furrowing in concern, Ella's eyes lingered on him as he went, until he turned a corner and she lost sight of him. Huffing out an angry breath, she turned back to Lindsey, and Dean, who had a pleased expression on his face. Shaking her head, mostly to herself, she excused herself to go find Lane, maneuvering through the sweaty bodies and drunken mumbles.

. . .

Balmy air and crickets, Ella finally found Jess again out on the back porch. Most people were inside, gearing up for the band’s second set. She’d had to spend a pretty long time pulling a drunken Lane off the phone to her mother, aided by a still-shaken Rory. The evening seemed to have come to a screeching halt in the hour since the first set, and Ella was debating grabbing Jess’s hand and dragging him out. It was doubtful Lane would be conscious enough to make it through a song, let alone a second set. When Ella didn’t see his gelled black curls in the living room sea of teenage heads, she knew right where Jess would be. The night was pleasant, not quite too warm or humid, despite it being late May. 

He stood with his forearms leaned against the railing, facing the lush green backyard, and he didn’t even look back when he heard her open and close the screen door. Ambling up next to him, her boots felt heavy on her feet. The air was cool on her hot skin, and the spring breeze blew her hair from her face. Arms against the polished wooden rail, mirroring him, she waited a few moments before finally speaking in a soft tone. She tilted her head to the red solo cup Jess held in his hands. 

“Penny for a sip?” she asked.

Jess smirked. Saying nothing, he held the cup out to her. Taking a gulp of his slightly warm beer, she grimaced and then handed it back to him. 

“Thank you, good sir.”

“Who are you? Oliver Twist?”

She shrugged, noncommittal. “Or Little Orphan Annie. Can’t keep my broadway straight. You could probably help me out.”

“Very funny, Stevens,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his face. But it didn’t meet his eyes. They lacked their usual sardonic sparkle, even in the glowing moonlight. 

Leaning into his shoulder, Ella took in another deep breath of the fresh air. “What are you doing out here, James Dean? Did you not bring your sulking book?”

“Just couldn’t handle it inside.” He took another swig of his drink, emptying the cup, and set it carefully on the railing next to him. 

“Was it Dean?” Ella asked, placing a hand on the back of his neck and running her fingers through the ends of his hair. 

Jess glanced down at the ground with a bitter chuckle. “You think I actually care about Frankenstein’s monster in there?”

She scoffed knowingly. “Okay, fair enough. We can go soon, if you want. Lane’s wasted and Rory’s all messed up about Dean being here. And, I think I forgot to feed the cat? I have no idea why I let him stay in our house. He showed up right after my mom died, and kept hanging around our porch. He was already so old and he was so skinny. So I started letting him in when it got colder. My dad barely even noticed. I thought he’d be grateful, but now he hates us. Guess there was a lot of yelling and crying going on when he first came to live with us. But I suppose misery loves company-”

“I just…” Jess began, cutting off her rambling voice. He knew she was still waiting for an answer, but didn’t want to ask him another question. “You work your ass off for four years, and Dean still gets into the same college as you.”

Ella shrugged. “I don’t mind. There’s lots of people there. I probably won’t ever see him.”

“At least he’s finishing high school,” Jess muttered, shaking his head to himself and looking down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them in fists. 

Brows furrowed, Ella’s hand fell from his skin and she tilted her head in askance. “What do you mean?”

He heaved a big sigh, looking out into the woods beyond the yard. Somewhere through the trees, he thought he could see the shine of the lake. An ache tugged at his heart, and his stomach did a flip before he spoke again. 

“I went to get prom tickets when you were in the art room at lunch today. But then I got called to the principal’s office. He said I missed too many days.”

“And?”

Chewing on his bottom lip, he shook his head again. “Don’t make me say it, Elle.”

Pursing her lips, she brought her hands to her hips and nodded. “Guess you’ll need my speech in advance, then.”

“Guess so,” he echoed flatly, finally stealing a glance at her to gauge her reaction. With her strong stance, he could practically see the gears moving inside her head. There was a crease of concentration between her eyebrows, and she began biting at her nails absently. 

“And you haven’t told Luke yet?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Again, she nodded, more decisive this time. “Okay...okay. I wish you could stay with me, but my dad will have you dead inside a day. I bet if you take twelfth grade over Luke’ll let you stay. I mean, I know he tries to act all tough, but I don’t know who he thinks he’s kidding.”

Jess straightened up again, running a hand over his mouth. He turned to face her. “I’m not going back to school. I can’t.”

“Of course you can, Jess. World bites you, you bite back.”

“Fine, then. I _won’t_.”

“Why not? Where are you gonna go?”

He could only shrug in response, looking back down at his shoes. Sometimes her gaze was so intense, even he couldn’t handle it. Usually, though, it was because of butterflies in his stomach, not because his heart was pounding nervously in his ears. 

Swallowing dryly, she tried to maintain a calm facade. “No, Jess. You can’t do that Kerouac bullshit right now. You need a plan. I mean…” she paused to sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You told me you had it under control. You told me all I had to do was trust you.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, he composed himself and then wiped all emotion from his face when he looked back up at her. “I thought I did. I didn’t know how many days I missed, alright? But who cares! I never learned anything there anyway! It was a waste of my time!”

“And driving that forklift at Walmart forever isn’t a waste of your time?” she retorted, beginning to raise her voice. “If it made you happy, I’d say go for it. But it doesn’t! You’re too fucking smart for your own good, Mariano! You’re meant to be a writer! And you’re gonna settle on wasting your brain just because you were too proud to repeat senior year?!”

“Don’t talk to me about settling!” he countered, shaking his head. 

“Fuck you, Jess,” she said, eyes narrowing as more blood rushed to her face, turning her skin scarlet with frustration. “Not everyone can just go wherever they want! Live wherever they want! I have people I actually care about!”

Rubbing at his mouth again, he sighed. “Yeah, well, lucky you! My mother is a wackjob who shipped me off because her boyfriend of the week didn’t like me! And my father is a fucking loser who couldn’t say more than two words when he finally met me!”

Ella took a step back in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Jess breathed another exhausted sigh. “On Thursday, after you left. While I was closing. My dad came in, saw me for the first time in eighteen years. He told me who he was, took a good long look at me, and then ran right back out of the diner!”

There was a seismic shift in her face, eyes softening, color draining. Shaking her head, she went to touch his shoulder. “Oh my god, Jess. I didn’t-”

He shrugged off her hand. “Yeah, you didn’t know. Because I didn’t tell you. Because I’m just your deadbeat, high school dropout boyfriend who’s gonna work at Walmart for the rest of his life! How disappointing!”

“That’s not what I said!” she exclaimed, swallowing back the sting of tears in her eyes. 

“Yeah, well, I can read between the lines pretty well at this point, honey,” he shot back, with a vicious, contemptuous tone. 

Biting the inside of her cheek, she tried to remain calm. She tried to remember Jess had just failed senior year and met his dad for the first time in a span of two days. But, as always, the fire in her stomach won. It was something about the way he looked at her. So cold. Like he felt nothing for her at all. Her heart dropped and she began to back away, towards the screen door. 

“Fine. Fuck it! Go and find yourself. While I stay here, and think about what a fucking mistake it was to trust you when we said no cop-outs! Serves me right. Holden fucking Caulfield!” she shouted, slamming the sliding door behind her. 

Raking a hand through his messy hair, Jess took no more than one moment of hesitation before rushing after her. It was crowded inside, people standing around waiting for a second set which would likely never be played. After a little frantic searching and weaving through smelly bodies, he found her. She was marching up the stairs to find Rory, who stood looking exceedingly uncomfortable speaking with Dean and Lindsey on the landing. Ella tugged on Rory’s sleeve, muttering something about finding Lane and leaving the drums to pick up later. A scowl crossed her face the moment she looked back to see Jess. 

“Did he do something, Ella?” Dean piped up, towering over her and casting an authoritative glance at Jess. 

Ella snorted a laugh and shook her head. “You can stand down, Dean. He did nothing. Nothing at all. Fuck off, alright, Mariano?”

Catching the finitive, vitriolic tone in Ella’s voice, Jess shook his head back at her. Apparently she had decided the conversation was over. “Right back at ya, then, Stevens.”

But as he went to leave, Dean kicked into action. Before Ella, Rory, or Lindsey, could grab him and pull him back, he went into full testosterone rage and lunged after Jess, turning him about and clocking him square across the face. Ella watched in horror, and immediately went after them. Confusion painted her face. She heard Dean muttering under his breath as he fought, about what an asshole Jess was, about how Rory’s friends were his responsibility too, and they shouldn’t be spoken to that way. About how it was time Jess got a taste of his own medicine, making him feel like an idiot in class and acting like he was too good for Stars Hollow. She’d never had any classes with Dean and Jess, but the altercation made her wonder how deeply the feud ran. Apparently, much deeper than she ever thought. If not for the urgency of the situation, Ella would have rolled her eyes harder than she had prior known was humanly possible. She couldn’t help but wonder what _at all_ Rory or Lindsey saw in that sexist prick. In Ella’s opinion, the _Donna Reed Show_ incident two years earlier should’ve been the end of the relationship. 

All around the house, they fought, various others trying to pull them off of each other. Each time Ella thought she had an opening to grab Dean or Jess around the waist, they moved, jostling around. It was far more intense than the quarrel in the schoolyard had been. No, tonight there would be blood drawn. Finally, after a decent amount of carnage to the mid-century Connecticut two-story, someone managed to throw the two of them out onto the front lawn, still at each other’s throats. Ella yelled endlessly for them to stop, but neither listened. Only the sound of the police sirens approaching, red and blue lights flashing on the manicured grass, finally made them separate, a few boys at the party also aiding the effort. 

Just as Ella started rushing over to Jess, Lane began vomiting up the shitty keg beer she’d gulped down all night long into the trimmed bushes. Rory was by her side, but ultimately Ella cast only a sympathetic glance their way before continuing after Jess. She caught up with him a few paces down the sidewalk, grabbing the sleeve of his t-shirt to finally stop him. 

“Jess, Jesus, are you okay?” she demanded, trying to get a substantial glimpse at his face. 

Once again, he shook off her touch. He turned back to her in the light of the sheriff’s car, eyes darker than she had ever seen them. “Get outta here, Eleanor! I don’t need your help!”

“But, your-”

“Stop, Elle, just stop!” he interrupted, gesturing with his arms and practically bursting with anger. “Stop chasing after me! Stop trying to help me! That’s over! I don’t need it, alright? You can just fucking stop!”

Clutching at her necklace, she felt a heavy weight settle in her stomach, gluing her to the spot where she stood, hazel eyes impossibly wide. Watching him go, watching him disappear around a corner, watching him walk away. And the worst part was how unsurprised she felt. Had it always been this way? Him ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and her stuck in her old, familiar ways? Were they bound to end the moment they began? She should have seen it sooner. Suddenly, the sounds of the siren and the singing of late spring crickets overwhelmed her ears, and she could do nothing but stand motionless, feeling a sharp crack in her heart.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is much appreciated!


	21. California's Living Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Half a year passes for Ella and Jess.

The key zipped back and forth across the chain of Ella’s necklace, clutched in her shaky hands. Cloudy afternoon light shone down on her, gray and gloomy. Cool, humid breezes blew past her, and she knew a thunderstorm was coming. As she trudged into the diner, she made a pointed effort to stare down at her converse. A Sunday afternoon lull left the place less crowded than it would have been were she scheduled for the morning. Instead, she had woken up with a headache and an urge to call Luke’s, but decided against it. She knew Jess wouldn’t be able to hide the cut on his cheek or the bruising on his jaw from his uncle. If anyone picked up, it was bound to be in the middle of an argument, and she didn’t need any more reason to bite her nails until they bled. 

Slipping behind the counter, she noticed the way Luke’s eyes widened at the sight of her. As though he hadn’t been expecting her to show up. Salty air hung around them as Caesar fried up some burgers in the back, a sizzling hiss in everyones’ ears. Tying her apron around her hips, she frowned at him and furrowed her brows. 

“Something wrong?” she asked flatly. 

“Did you know about Jess?” Luke crossed his arms over his chest, tilting his head at her. 

Ella shrugged, unsure of whether the cat had yet been fully let out of the bag. “What about him?”

Sighing heavily, Luke brushed past her and gestured for her to follow him into the stock room. Rolling her eyes at his dramatics, she went with him. Apparently it couldn’t just be another day at the office. She wondered in the back of her mind where Jess was, but knew it was more than likely he was off somewhere with his nose back in  _ Dead Souls _ , or escaping with another shift at Walmart. Biding time before he had to let Luke know what happened. 

“I’m not stupid, Ella,” Luke said.

Nodding slowly, Ella bit the inside of her cheek and cast her eyes back down to her shoes. “I know. I know you’re not. Look, I didn’t know about school. He only told me last night, alright?”

“And did he tell you where he was planning on going?”

Immediately, she turned her head up to face him again. “What do you mean?”

“This morning, I got a call from Kyle’s parents, about Jess and Dean tearing up their place-”

“Dean sucker-punched him,” Ella interjected.

Luke rolled his eyes. “ _ Nice excuse _ . I had to write the kid’s father a check! And Jess didn’t even apologize. Instead, he let me know he’s not graduating, and he’s not going back! And  _ we _ had an agreement!”

Again, she nodded slowly, fiddling with her necklace. “I know. So...you kicked him out?”

“Not exactly. We hadn’t really talked it out all the way. I went out to get some stock, and an hour later, I come back and he’s just  _ gone _ !” Luke exclaimed, exasperated. 

“What do you mean  _ gone _ ?”

“All his stuff, I mean everything he could fit in that nasty duffel of his, he took it. No message, nothing!” Luke watched Ella’s expression fall and the color drain from her cheeks, and he immediately regretted letting all the information slip out in an angry rant the way he had. 

Searching the room to focus on anything but Luke’s face, she shook her head to herself, attempting to conceal the way her stomach began doing anxious flips. No message, nothing. Overnight. Gone. “Well...did you know his dad was here? Would he try to go after him?”

Luke sighed again. “Yeah. I told him not to go near Jess, but-”

“You knew before Jess? You didn’t tell him his dad was here?” Ella interrupted, her voice growing tense. 

“Look, Ella, it’s more complicated than that. I saw him here last Wednesday. I found his hotel, told him it’d be better to stay away. The guy’s a nobody-”

“Yeah, well, he’s a nobody Jess has been waiting to meet his whole life!” In all her time knowing Luke, Ella had never yelled at him. Not that he was a stranger to her temper. He’d seen it directed at rude customers, mainly Taylor, many times. But never had he faced the fire in her eyes, or the crestfallen look she had. She swallowed thickly. “Jesus. I mean...last night he seemed upset, but not enough to think his father was worth going after.  _ Fuck! _ ”

Soon, she was mostly speaking to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose. Luke softened his gaze and ran his nervous palms over his flannel. He brought a hand to Ella’s shoulder so she would meet his eyes again. 

“Ella, Jess is an adult. He has to make his own choices. I know it’s frustrating-”

She scoffed bitterly. “That’s one word for it.”

“But there’s nothing we can do. We have to just...let him go.”

Teeth clenching down on the inside of her cheek so hard she could taste coppery blood, Ella shook her head again. “Serves me right.”

“Wait here,” Luke said tiredly, disappearing back into the main room. 

Confusion painted Ella’s features for more reasons than one. A cold stone of sadness sat heavily in her stomach. It was a fight. A fight she thought they would apologize to each other for eventually, and then get past. She’d truly thought Luke would find a way to let Jess stay, or at least to look after him while he floated around in his new high school dropout reality. Instead, Jess had taken it into his own hands. Cut and run. But she had to give him credit; it was the most decisive move she’d ever seen him make. Worry flooded her mind. Jess was tough, but tough enough to brave the world alone? With a father he knew nothing about? How bad was the guy anyway? Leaving his son when an infant certainly didn’t inspire a lot of confidence in his character. Tears stung in her eyes, but she shook them off as Luke returned.

“He, uh…” Luke began, holding a worn book and a CD out to her, “This had a little sticky note on it. Just said ‘Ella.’ I’m gonna assume they’re yours, I know you guys share...everything.”

As soon as she took them in her hands, Luke left the room, figuring she would need a moment. With the look she had on her face, he doubted she would be back to work for the rest of the day. Her heart skipped when she saw the CD:  _ Turn on the Bright Lights _ by Interpol. She tried to stop the way her jaw tensed with anger, and her stomach swirled with nostalgia. The book was hers. The last one she had loaned him. She still had one of his Faulkners sitting on her nightstand, halfway finished. Apparently, he wasn’t eager to have it back. Flipping through her beloved copy of  _ To the Lighthouse _ (she knew it was cliché, but she always considered it Woolf’s best work), she noticed how his notes stopped with only twenty pages left. She was about ready to throw the book across the room, seeing the inconsequential comments and questions he’d written, when she saw a block of his spiky handwriting on the last page:

_ Eleanor, _

_ I won’t get a chance to finish, but I really liked this. I remember once you told me it was your favorite book of all time, and I have to admit I didn’t think it would live up to the hype. But it did. Lily Briscoe reminds me of you. A badass artist who doesn’t need anyone. I figured you would want this back, since you love it so much. _

_ -Jess _

Blowing out a furious breath, Ella blinked back tears for a second time and focused on the anger brewing within her. It was easier than the sadness. She refused to have her heart broken over him. Love didn’t exist. Why be surprised when the universe proves it again and again? Ignoring Luke’s questioning looks, she went out and shoved the CD and book into her bag by the door. The rest of her shift, she spoke in clipped tones and tugged in annoyance at the loose strands of her hair. And Luke decided it was better. They could both be miserable, silently, together. 

. . .

A late June morning found Ella back behind the counter, filling coffee cups and twirling around on her sore feet once again. Over the summer, she worked doubles whenever was humanly possible and spent her off nights sketching in the corner table. She tried to keep Jess from her mind, and though it was difficult while spending so much time at Luke’s, a stubbornness in her refused to let her relent. Though Jess was related to Luke by blood, Ella had worked there and been there for so much longer than Jess ever had. Him leaving wasn’t going to destroy her home away from home. She simply wouldn’t let it. 

Lorelai and Rory were off on their European backpacking trip, and Lane was toiling away at Bible camp. Pathetic as it was, Ella simply didn’t have anyone to hang out with. She’d always only had a few close friends. Had Jess still been there, she could only imagine what they would spend their time doing. Curled together on his twin bed reading, or arguing about what they were reading, playing cards in her room with Jeff Buckley on the record player, making out to Interpol albums, lunches at the lake, shifts together day in and day out. There had been plans. But she shook them from her brain and got back to work, blowing loose locks away from her face and yelling orders back to Caesar as they came in. Luke was on register, trademark scowl on full display. Soon, he would be away on a cruise with Nicole. Ella hoped it would lift his mood at least a little. 

Though, it was a hypocritical thought. She certainly hadn’t been a ray of sunshine the past few weeks, even on her best days, even at graduation. For her speech, she’d read an Anne Sexton poem and connected it to life. She’d looked out at the crowd to see Lane, but not Rory. And not Jess. Her father had cried a little in pride, which surprised her, made her remember the man he had once been. Fiona had cheered and brought her flowers. Adam had smiled and given her a big hug afterwards. But, as much as she tried to revel in the relief and the happiness which surrounded her, there were pieces missing. Big pieces nothing could make up for. Not Jess, even. Her mother. The anniversary of her death had come and gone, and Ella couldn’t believe how long it had been. Time seemed so warped by death. Some days, she felt like she had seen her mother just yesterday. Other days, she thought it odd she had ever had a mother at all. Even Luke and Lorelai had come to watch her speech and cheer her on, but her own mother simply wasn’t there. She’d done her best the whole day to maintain a plastic smile, but that night, she sobbed quietly to Billie Holliday and sketched skeletons. 

For just a moment, she took a breath. All the coffees were refilled, the orders were taken. She had no compulsory small talk left to make. She put the pot in the machine and began making a new batch. Leaning against the back counter, she crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. Across the street in the town square, they were setting up for some new, random festival. She could imagine Jess at her side, complaining about all the expensive, meaningless fanfare. A grinch who had been absent at prom, where she stood as a third wheel to Lane and Dave. The phone broke her out of her thoughts, and she went to answer it, but Luke beat her to the receiver. 

“Luke’s,” he said flatly. But Ella watched his weary eyes widen in surprise. “Jess? Where are you?”

Instantly, Ella’s heart felt as though it would leap right out of her chest. She went over to stand near Luke, expression questioning. “Is that really Jess?” she asked in a whisper.

He glanced up at her but didn’t answer. “Really? Is he making you pay rent?...Well, be sure to never tell Liz that…”

Ella watched in excruciating anticipation, hearing snippets of the conversation, fragments she couldn’t exactly string together in a narrative. Was it really him? Over a month without a call, and she was beginning to think she would never hear his voice again. 

Suddenly, Luke threw another glance Ella’s way, this time anxious. “Yeah, she did…”

“Give me the phone,” Ella said, holding her hand out.

“One second,” Luke muttered, then put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I don’t know if he-”

“I don’t care.” She hadn’t expected grabbing the phone from Luke to be so easy, but perhaps he was too surprised at her sudden movement to resist. Ella paid no mind to the curious eyes of onlookers as she began speaking in hushed, angry tones. “Jess?”

There was a beat of silence. 

“I know it’s you, jackass. Where the hell are you?” she demanded. 

Jess sighed heavily over the line. “Venice. I’m staying with my dad.”

“Really?” she asked, eyes narrowing. “That guy who walked right out of your life,  _ twice _ now, without a second thought?”

“Look, Eleanor, it’s-”

“Don’t ‘Eleanor’ me,” she warned, shaking her head. “Actually, y’know what? I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck where you are. All I need you to do is let me know you’re alive. I don’t care how you are, who you’re with, anything. You just need to let me know, every once in a while, that you didn’t starve or end up lying in a ditch somewhere. Be a decent fucking human being, and let the girl with the dead mom know you’re alive.”

“Okay, I-”

“Glad we could sort that out,” she bit out, her tone absolutely venomous. Before he could say anything more, she shoved the phone back into Luke’s hands, and retreated into the stock room. For the rest of the day, Luke let her tear open the cardboard box shipments with an Exacto knife, her face with an ever-present flush as she worked. 

. . .

Sat up in bed, Ella sketched the same rose over and over. She was reminded of Georgia O’Keefe, painting her door time and again. Mid-August breeze blew in for her open window, and her back leaned against the purple mural of a goddess she’d taken nearly two months to complete. Her eyes were heavier than they usually would be for eleven o’clock on a Friday. She’d finally completed her first week of classes. And it seemed about as tiring as high school had been. All her classes were interesting, and the radio played some pretty-sounding oldies during her drive back and forth from Hartford, but she was already dreading four more years of drudgery. What was the point of working so hard in high school just to have to go through the whole ordeal again? 

Existentialist train of thought aside, she tried to let it fade from her mind, focusing only on her drawing. And the Stevies Nicks record playing. Without realizing it, she sang along with the words in hushed tones under her breath. Her damp waves fell over her shoulder, a comforting smell from her lavender shampoo. She’d wanted to shower in the morning, bright and early before she had to drive to math class. But it was also Adam’s first week of high school, and he’d taken much longer than necessary. Most of the time, they got along pretty well, bonding over a shared inclination towards campy ‘80s movies. But the mornings were an exception to the rule they could always count on. Admittedly, it was often Ella’s own fault. She had the tendency to morph into a grouchy monster right after waking. 

She breathed a slow sigh as the phone began to ring, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands. Tossing her sketchbook to the side, she picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey, Eleanor.” Jess’s voice sounded much the same. It was odd to imagine him all the way across the country, a leather jacket city boy on a hot California beach. 

“Still alive, I take it?” she asked. 

“No, it’s  _ Night of the Living Dead _ on the West Coast. Haven’t you seen it on the news?” he quipped. 

Rolling her eyes, she let out another small sigh. “Goodbye.”

“Wait, Elle, I know you’re mad-”

She hung up before he could finish the sentence. 

. . .

Eighteen years old. She was a legal adult but she didn’t quite believe it. Fiddling with her necklace, she laid on her huge mattress and stared up at the ceiling. There was a yellowed water stain on the popcorned white surface. Once in a blue moon, it would leak. The day brought torrential thunderstorms, perfect for a birthday, and she thought she may have felt a few droplets on her already-wet cheeks.

Fiona was trying; she really was. She always did. She’d made a cake and they’d sung her the song. But it simply wouldn’t be enjoyable until she got out of the house. Celebrating with her family just made her feel like she was in an episode of  _ The Twilight Zone _ where they’d recast her mother. She was still attempting to make peace with Fiona, though. And if it made her stepmother happy, she was willing to endure an awkward hour of dinner. 

She hadn’t allowed herself to start crying until she got in her room, saw the picture of her grandmother holding her mother as a baby in the old frame on her desk. So many dead women. And here she was, always getting older. Pearl Jam spun on the record player, but it did little to lift her spirits. She was examining the set of faux-ruby earrings Fiona and her father had given her, still in their small cardboard box, thinking about how red really wasn’t her color, when the phone ran. Sniffing harshly, she wiped at her cheeks though no one over the receiver would see her. 

“Hello?”

“Happy eighteen, Stevens,” Jess’s voice spoke, making her immediately grimace. Almost exactly one year since they’d first kissed. “You go out to legally buy your porn and cigarettes yet?”

“Fuck off, Jess,” she murmured tiredly, shaking her head. 

“Look, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, since-”

“Goodbye,” she deadpanned, slamming the phone down and flopping back heavily against her pillows. 

. . .

Her history textbook was still open on her desk, and moonlight streamed into her small room. A long evening of studying had seen her call it quits right in the middle of a chapter. She’d collapsed in bed dressed in her jeans and thick sweater, chilled even inside from the October draught. A throb pulsed behind her eyes for what felt like forever before she finally drifted off to sleep. Her eyes were hot inside her skull, achy and dry, when the phone’s ring split through the silence of the night. Clearing her throat, she rolled over in the darkness.

“Hello?” she said groggily. 

“Jeez, I thought you laid off the smokes.”

She rolled her eyes at the sound of Jess’s voice, she cleared her throat again and sat up against the mural. “Shut up, jackass, you woke me up.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Still alive?” she asked.

“Seems that way,” he said. It pained her to hear the smirk on his face.

“Well, that’s the goal,” she snarked in a clipped tone before hanging up. As she tried to drift back into dreams, she fiddled with her necklace, tossed and turned. 

. . .

She chewed on her eraser, brows furrowed as she read over the same sentence in  _ Paradise Lost  _ for what felt like the millionth time. Mostly, she’d been having fun in her English class. But biblical themes had never been her forté, and a poem which spent so much time recounting the story of Adam and Eve made her want to do nothing but roll her eyes. Her mother had been Christian, though they never went to Church. And she’d heard her father occasionally refer to God or say her mother was in Heaven. But if Ella wasn’t going to believe in luck or love, she certainly wasn’t going to believe in any higher power. None of the religions she’d ever encountered or read about struck her fancy even a little. 

The phone rang, and it was almost a welcome break, despite such a sudden interruption. Blinking the dryness from her eyes, she got up from her desk and tucked her hair, falling into her field of vision as she read, behind her ears. She sat cross-legged in the center of her mattress as she picked up, wrapping the phone cord around her fingers absently as she answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Jess answered simply. 

She furrowed her brows, glanced over at her small bedside clock. Only four in the afternoon. As much as she wanted to snap angrily and immediately hang up as she had for the past five months, the change in pattern piqued her curiosity too much. And there was something in his voice which felt off to her. “Little early for you, isn't it, Mariano? It should barely be afternoon there.”

“Oh, we’re talking now?” he asked pointedly.

“Gotta keep you on your toes, jackass,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But, fuck it. I’ll go. Leave you to your new dazzling West Coast existence.”

He sighed heavily. “Fine. Sorry. I’m just sick. I thought about going to work but then my  _ Exorcist  _ reenactment got in the way. Something I ate.”

“Hm. California food not exactly up to Connecticut health codes?” she asked. 

Jess scoffed. “Like Connecticut can talk. Al’s Pancake World much?”

Ella snorted a chuckle. “Fair enough.” Then, after a moment: “Well, just make sure to drink water. You never drink enough water when you’re sick. Rookie mistake.”

“You’re not exactly one to talk,” he countered.

“What does that mean?” she asked in mock offense.

His tone was joking, but almost nostalgic. “Do you not remember the time you had laryngitis? You tried to come to work! Luke made me drag you upstairs the minute he saw you.”

“I still could’ve been on dish pit or something,” she said defensively. “Besides, that day I finally got you to watch  _ Silence of the Lambs _ . Not exactly a waste of time.”

“That  _ was _ a good movie.”

“Good book, too. But the movie was better.”

“Blasphemy!” Jess gasped.

Ella laughed quietly, but was suddenly acutely aware of the distance between them. He wasn’t a two-minute walk away. And she wouldn’t see him on her shift the following day. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, I should go. Gotta finish this section of  _ Paradise Lost _ .”

“You don’t sound too happy about it,” Jess quipped. She’d said the title in an agitated mutter.

“It’s excruciating.”

“Huh. Thought you’d go crazy for college poetry, even seventeenth-century religious stuff.”

Ella scoffed doubtfully. “Milton couldn’t hold a candle to Dickinson.”

“Strong words,” he said.

“Well, that’s the best kind,” she smirked, then bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself. “Anyway...feel better, Jess.”

“Thanks.”

. . .

Lights of red, green, and yellow flashed outside her window, hanging from the gutters of the small blue house. Icy, crunchy snow caked the Connecticut roads, new flurries coming down in sheets. Joni Mitchell’s “River” crooned from the record player, and Ella was warm beneath her blankets. Pencil in her hand, she underlined and boxed in phrases from her new copy of Adrienne Rich poems. She and Rory, back from Yale, had been to the bookstore the day after Christmas, when everything was marked down to clearance. She missed those lazy days together with her old friends. 

Breathing the lavender scent of her candles, she felt content but dreaded the end of the holiday break. Rory would leave again, and Ella would have to go back to the monotony of college life. At least, now, Lane had quit her Christian college upon her mother’s discovery of her secret life. She was looking for a place to live with her band, and Ella was glad she’d have her friend still near her, living on her own terms. Ella didn’t hate Mrs. Kim, but knew Lane would never be truly happy unless she was out from under her mother’s thumb. 

The phone sounded over the music, and Ella knew who it would be before she picked it up. Jess had been calling more often lately, ever since he’d gotten over his food poisoning. He told her he’d never eat another piece of sushi again. She didn’t exactly know the reason for the increase. Perhaps he finally got a cell phone, could call her wherever he was. If he had, she could only imagine the struggle it must have been for him. He was definitely on Luke’s side of the handheld phone debate. Somehow, a shift had occurred. Small. But it had happened. Though their conversations weren’t exactly substantive, she felt a little less upset each time they spoke, anger slowly cooling after all their time apart. The pleasant memories were coming back to her more easily, as soon as she let him get a few words in. She still couldn’t help feeling betrayed, but at least he kept up his end of the deal. He barely went more than two weeks anymore without letting her know he was still on the face of the Earth. 

She sighed softly. “Hello?”

“Hey, Eleanor,” he said. “Has all the noise, noise, noise finally ceased?”

She shook her head. “Mostly. Luke was in an even worse mood than he usually is on Christmas. The divorce and all.”

Jess snorted a laugh. “My god, I’m glad that whole bizarro thing is over.”

“You haven’t been here. You don’t know the half of it,” she smirked, thinking back to Luke’s odd marriage to his lawyer. The back and forth, to divorce or not to divorce, made everyone who was watching dizzy. She heard Jess inhale sharply, familiar to ear. “Are you smoking?”

“Who are you? Nancy Drew?” he shot back.

“I asked you first.”

“Depends. Have you been biting your nails?” 

Ella scoffed self-consciously. “Those two habits are not comparable at all. But touché.” She cast a glance out the window when the branches of the oak tree scraped up against the pane. “Jesus. It won’t stop snowing here.”

“Yeah. Here, too,” he said off-handedly. 

Brows furrowing, Ella let a confused chuckle escape her lips. “In Venice Beach? Climate change is hitting pretty hard out there, huh?”

A pause sounded over the receiver, a slight crackling in between them. 

“Actually...I’m in New York.”

She hesitated, blinking twice to process the information before she spoke again. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Things uh...things didn’t work out with Jimmy,” he admitted sheepishly.

Blowing out a long breath, she bit the inside of her cheek. “Jesus, Jess, I’m sorry.”

“You can say it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You told me so.”

Shaking her head to herself again, Ella rolled the phone cord in her fingertips. “I’m not gonna say that. I just...I want you to have what you want. I don’t...I don’t want other people to fuck things up for you.”

He chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, well, I think I do a pretty good job of fucking things up on my own.”

“Jess-”

“Look, I gotta go. Work and stuff. So, yeah, still alive,” he said hastily.

“Okay. Just...be safe. Don’t get mugged or kidnapped or anything.”

Jess laughed again softly, more genuine this time. “I’ll try, Stevens. Don’t worry.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is much appreciated!


	22. Everything Joan Didion Promised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jess returns to Stars Hollow to retrieve his car, Ella tries to keep him from getting hypothermia. Later, they cross paths at the annual firelight festival.

Refilling the shakers, Ella nodded at Sheriff Cooper as he waltzed into the diner. The local law enforcement came in at all hours of the day for coffee and free donuts, though it wasn’t like they had boatloads to do in a town as sleepy as Stars Hollow. She didn’t bother to eavesdrop on the conversation until she was behind the counter again, putting the salt and pepper back where it belonged. Coop was sliding a slip of paper across to Luke, who stood by the register. Glancing over, she recognized the handwriting immediately. After all, it was all over her books. 

“Is that Jess’s registration?” she asked, leaning in near Luke.

Luke sighed, casting a wary glance in her direction. “Yes.”

“They found his car? Jeez, it took them long enough,” she said off-handedly, tucking her hair behind her ears. 

“Hey! It only took us a day, young lady,” Coop chimed in, face sullen below the bill of his leather hat. “Not too hard with a hunk of junk like that.”

Brows furrowed, Ella turned back to Luke and tilted her head at him in askance. 

Groaning and rolling his eyes, Luke looked over at her again. “It was in my dad’s old garage. I went to check on it this morning and the lock was busted off.”

“You  _ stole _ his  _ car _ ?” Ella crossed her arms over her chest, taking a step back and straightening up. When Luke didn’t respond, Ella scoffed and shook her head to herself. 

“Look, Ella, if he didn’t have a car, maybe he wouldn’t keep going to Walmart,” Luke explained, his voice a grumble under his breath. 

“Hm,” Ella hummed, nodding doubtfully. 

He was about to continue when strong yellow lights began flashing through the window to the right. A sheriff’s car preceded a tow truck with Jess’s rusty Ambassador hooked onto the back. Coop said the car had broken down on the Expressway a couple hours earlier, and Jess had immediately been picked up. Luke instructed Ella to hold down the fort while he went out to deal with the situation, the precession parking right out in front of the diner. 

  
  


And as she began closing up, cashing out the final customers and wiping down the counters, she couldn’t keep her distracted gaze off of the scene through the window. She couldn’t hear what Jess and Luke were shouting at each other, but she could gather it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. A knot of nerves sat in her stomach, watching from the corner of her eye. Luke eventually stomped back into the diner, and Ella saw Jess collapse into the back seat of his rust bucket across the street. She tried to ask Luke what had happened, but he shut her down instantly. The rest of the shift was spent in tense, anxious silence. 

. . .

A bright half moon shone in the late February sky as Ella left the dark diner and locked up. She could see her breath in whitish clouds as she stalled in her path at the bottom of the concrete steps. Flexing her hands in the pockets of her peacoat, she bit the inside of her cheek and furrowed her brows. Either she could leave Jess where he was, curled up in the backseat of his death trap on wheels, and turn down the street to the little blue house, or go up and to him and face the music. Turning on the heel of her boot, she almost ignored him. Almost. Though she spoke to him every now and again over the phone, seeing him in person was a whole different matter. Just the sight of him made her heart twist in her chest. But then a huge gust of wind came, blowing her hair back and making frosty roses form on her freckled cheeks. Emitting an audible growl in the empty street, she shook her head to herself and marched to the car which held so many memories. 

She knocked twice, hard, on the back window with frozen knuckles.

Jess’s figure shifted only slightly in the seat. “Go away,” he groaned.

Ella rolled her eyes. “It’s me, jackass!”

Huffing out a frustrated breath, Jess finally sat up and cranked down his window. “ _ What? _ ”

“I almost forgot how much more  _ charming _ you are in-person,” she quipped.

“G’night,” Jess shot back ruefully, making to roll his window back up.

Ella put her hand on the glass to stop him, sighing out another cloud of condensation. “Look, Luke is back with Nicole again-”

Jess scoffed.

“Yeah, I don’t know, either,” she muttered. “But he’s spending the night at their place in Litchfield, so I doubt you’ll be able to get up to the apartment without breaking in, and that’ll likely cause more problems than it solves-”

“Like I need Luke’s help,” he interjected petulantly.

“Just let me finish,” she snapped. “It’s gonna drop to like eight degrees out here, and neither of us wants you getting hypothermia, so just come stay with me for the night.”

Brows furrowing, Jess couldn’t hide the utter surprise which appeared on his face. The ice between them was slowly melting, sure, but he never figured she would be forgiving enough to offer something like that. “Very funny, Stevens. I’m tired, alright?”

  
“Jesus, Jess, I’m not joking!”

“What about your dad?” Jess asked, his voice flat, though his eyes were calculating. 

She only shrugged. “Well, from what I remember, you have a talent for sneaking around my house. Your skills might be a little rusty, but I’m not gonna sweat it.”

Slowly, very slowly, Jess nodded and got out of the backseat, sheepish. His joints cracked as he straightened up again, stiff from two hours lying motionless in the cold. Appraising him, Ella couldn’t help but grimace. He had dark circles under his eyes, skin paler than usual. And the black beanie he wore certainly didn’t suit him.

“The prodigal son, indeed,” she said, eyebrows raised.

His mouth was set in a thin line, unamused. “Are we going, or not?”

. . .

Humming. Jess had almost forgotten about the humming. Most of the time, Ella didn’t even realize she was doing it. At the diner, over homework. Anytime she wasn’t acutely focused on something, her mind wandered back to whatever music was striking her fancy at the moment. Standing awkwardly, with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, Jess had yet to even unzip the leather jacket he was wearing or shed any layers. He’d never felt so uncomfortable in her room before, not even the first time he’d come, before they were dating, when he’d discovered how good she was at cards. He watched her rifling through the drawers of her old dresser, humming some Elliot Smith song he couldn’t quite place the title of. 

She turned back to him with clothes in her hands, tossing them onto the mattress by which Jess stood before she started making for the door. “ _ You _ get to wear the famous KISS t-shirt tonight, my friend.”

“C’mon, Elle-” he began, his voice a sigh.

“You should be honored, Jess. Besides, it’s the biggest t-shirt I have. And those sweatpants were Noah’s. Should fit you. I’m gonna go brush my teeth and change and stuff. Make yourself at home,” she said casually, as though there weren’t so many unspoken words hanging in the air between them. 

He shook his head, looking down at his beat-up shoes. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Believe me, I’ll sleep better knowing you’re not freezing to death in your back seat,” she replied.

Turning and shutting the door softly behind her, Ella left before Jess could say anything else. Looking around, things were much the same, save for the walls. He remembered painting the white color on them, right before everything had gone to hell. He remembered waking up in the room so many times, rushing out before Luke would notice he was gone, planting a final kiss on her sleepy face before he went. He’d always woken up before her. Nervous that she may come back before he was finished, Jess stripped off his dirty clothes as quickly as he could, leaving them in a small pile near the window through which he had just climbed. He pulled on the sweatpants and hesitated a moment before tugging the shirt over his head. He’d seen her wearing it in the early light of the morning, or late at night when they sat up together, him reading and her drawing.

The corkboard over her desk was covered in new sketches, and he saw some in charcoal. He turned away, eyes meeting the purple mural behind the mattress. The sight of it made him smile. She was even more talented than when he had left, if it was possible. A soft creak sounded in the room, and he turned expecting to find Ella. Instead, a large, black cat with one eye missing and a curmudgeonly expression on its face came in, hopping up onto the bare surface of the desk and curling up into a ball. Quirking a brow, Jess stared at the cat, who Ella had told him was named Fleetwood. Shocking. 

Ella snorted a laugh when she came back in, now dressed in a flannel shirt and some leggings, makeup washed off and hair loose down her back. “Hm. You’ve finally met the ghost which haunts the Stevens house. He got pissed because I opened the dryer.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, he’s great.”

“Sounds like it.”

Blowing out a long breath, she switched off her overhead light and approached the bed. The clock read almost midnight, and her eyes were achy with fatigue. Collapsing onto the mattress and burrowing under her blankets, she went to turn out the bedside lamp but hesitated when she saw Jess still standing rigidly at the end of the bed, debating whether to sleep on her old carpet.

“Jess, you can lay down if you want. Not like we haven’t slept in the same bed before,” she said, voice calm though her heart was beating against her ribs. “I mean, if you wanna sleep in the same bed...Woah, that was presumptuous of me. I’m sorry, I-”

Jess cut her off with a chuckle. “It’s fine, Stevens. I just...wanted to make sure.”

Nodding, she shut the lamp off and felt the mattress dip next to her as Jess got under the covers and laid on his side, facing the wall. She didn’t know how long they spent, backs to each other, in stale silence. It was strange, how similar it felt to so many other nights together. But so utterly different, too. His hair was longer, with less gel than ever. She wondered how else California had changed him, in ways she couldn’t see. Taking in a long breath, Ella squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before turning over to face his back and hoping she didn’t regret speaking.

“Jess?”

“Yeah?”

“How’d you know about your car? I mean... _ I _ didn’t even know about that. And Luke rants to me pretty much every day.”

There was another long silence before Jess heaved a huge sigh. Ella could see the outline of his shoulders move beneath the white fabric of the worn shirt in the dim light. As he flipped over on his side, they looked each other in the eyes for the first time in what felt like years. 

“My mom told me about it.”

“Your mom?” Ella’s brow crinkled.

Jess breathed another sigh. “Yeah, I’ve been keepin’ in touch with her since I got back to New York. She came to see Luke at the diner this morning. Weren’t you there?”

“I don’t  _ live _ there. I was in class.”

He scoffed. “Geek.”

“Whatever, jackass. You and your back pocket books,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So...you and your mom are…?”

“Well, we’re not gonna be doing any mother-son talent shows together any time soon, but at least she told me where my property was.”

Nodding, she hummed quietly in acknowledgement. “I really didn’t know he had the car, Jess. I would’ve said something.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

Then, after a moment: “I don’t know. She and I...at least I don’t have to live with her and her endless string of suitors. She’s got a new one, y’know.”

“Hm.”

“Yeah, I don’t even remember what his name is. She might’ve told me, but, at this point, it’s a waste of time thinking they’ll stick around longer than a week,” Jess said. He chewed on his bottom lip. 

“What about your dad?” she asked quietly, noticing how his gaze darted away from hers at the question. There was still some distance between them, but she could almost feel his breath on her face. 

Jess took a moment before answering. “Well, he’s still out there in California and I’m here. That’s that.”

“Okay,” she said shortly, nodding again in understanding. Her eyes searched his face for anything more, but his expression was unreadable. “Did you like it out there, at least? Was it everything Joan Didion promised?”

He shifted slightly, hand going under the pillow on which his head rested, getting more comfortable. A hint of a smirk touched his lips. “Sort of. But, I do know one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“You’d hate it there,” he told her, a smug expression growing. 

She chuckled breathily. “Why?”

“It’s hot as hell, first off. There’s sand everywhere. And I know how you feel about oceans,” he said, shooting a pointed glance her way. “And it’s just  _ full _ of these hippies, babbling about astrology and fate and all that bullshit. I don’t think you’d be able to stomach it for a day.”

“Oh, and you were able to weather it so much better?” she teased. 

He shrugged. “Well, I worked at the bookstore on the boardwalk for a few months. Only a few crazies to deal with every shift.”

“Hm. I could see it. You sulking behind the counter, reading, while some flower child begs you for some help.”

“Hey, I did a  _ great _ job,” he argued.

“Yeah, using those famous Jess Mariano customer service skills,” she said doubtfully, then stifled a yawn against the back of her hand. 

“Tired?” he asked, raising a brow.

“Not really,” she lied. “I just had an eight o’clock this morning. Should be against the law.”

“Ah, yes. The joys of higher education,” Jess said with a quiet laugh, watching as she struggled to keep her eyes open.

She snickered, her speech growing more raspy with fatigue by the word. “It’s okay. Kind of interesting. Pretty boring here without Rory, though.”

“She’s at Yale, right?”

Ella nodded. “Living her dreams. Winning everyone over with those baby blues...Sorry. I sound fucking pathetic.”

Biting down on his lip again, Jess looked at her for a long moment. He didn’t realize how much he had missed her until he got a glimpse of her. He got her voice every once in a while, but not her face. Not her mind.

A blush spread over her cheeks at his gaze, and she suddenly regretted her words. She wanted to roll her eyes at herself. It was so childish to be jealous of Rory, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. And when Jess was around, she always found herself forgetting to keep it all locked up, letting things slip out. It certainly didn’t help that she was totally exhausted.

“Eleanor,” Jess said earnestly. “You’re not pathetic, alright? You’re a badass artist. Lily Briscoe. And, for the record, you’ve got Bette Davis eyes.”

“Bette Davis’s eyes were blue, Jess,” she said doubtfully.

“I don’t mean the color. Just the look,” he said, shrugging at her correction.

Ella snorted a suspicious laugh. “How the hell do you know that song anyway?”

“Not important. And you’re not gonna distract me. Don’t doubt yourself, Stevens,” Jess said, and for a minute Ella found herself enclosed in a memory. In a New York port authority, preparing to board a bus, Jess with a new drawing of the Hudson in his pocket. “Own your narrative.”

She swallowed down the pleasant swell of her heart. “Well, if I’m owning mine, you’ve gotta own yours. Have you started that book yet, Kerouac?”

He gave a thin, mocking smile. “The travelling kinda got in the way.”

“Well, I’m sure it gave you lots of material,” she murmured, eyes finally fluttering shut. 

It only took a few minutes for her breathing to even out, slow and steady. Jess turned over onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, the water spot Ella always said was shaped like a Zeppelin. Raking a hand through his hair anxiously, he shut his eyes and tried to fall asleep. But the lavender smell was too familiar, almost too comforting, as was the woman next to him. 

. . .

Standing by the register, Ella tried to bite back a smirk as Luke argued with his sister. Liz was rounding up ingredients from down in the diner to bring upstairs. Her new boyfriend, TJ, he was called, was up in the apartment attempting some sort of lunch. Ella would have called the cops on him trying to get up in the apartment had Liz not been there to identify him. She had heard stories about Liz over the years, from both Luke and Jess. And though she had gleaned enough information to assume the woman was bizarre, she hadn’t expected the new age, peace-loving, crystal earring-making vibe she had. Especially considering some of the things Ella knew she had done to Jess, not the least of which was shipping him off because her boyfriend got into a fist fight with him. And TJ? Ella could only imagine the angry shade of red Luke’s face would turn when TJ asked him to guess what his initials stood for. 

Checking her watch, she sighed softly when she saw it was only two in the afternoon. There was a lull after the lunch rush, and she’d cleaned up as well as she could for the time being. So, she would be left stagnant behind the counter while Stars Hollow lives rushed around her. And, though Caesar was in the back, he rarely came out to speak with her. He was busy with prep, and the new headphones he’d just gotten, to listen to his music on full volume during slow times. 

A scowling Luke turned back to Ella as Liz marched up the stairs, arms full of food, and broke her out of her pitiful reverie. Her eyes widened slightly at his furious look. 

“You let him up there?” Luke demanded.

“She’s your sister! What was I supposed to do? Get Coop out here to arrest her fiancé?” she asked, gesturing with her hands in exasperation.

“I don’t know! Just...you could’ve waited until I got back!”

Ella shook her head. “How was I supposed to know when you’d be back? You didn’t say anything! Y’know, if you’d just get a cell phone for these kinds of things like I’ve been telling you-”

“ _ You  _ don’t have a cellphone!”

“ _ I _ don’t own a diner.”

Luke put his hand up and let out a weary sigh. “Enough. Fine. Just...is there any chance you could stage a horrible accident in the next two minutes? We’d have to take a long drive to the hospital.”

“I don’t think that would solve the core problem, boss,” she said.

Nodding, Luke went to ascend the stairs to a certain doom. “You’re right, kid. You’re right,” he admitted gruffly. “You okay down here for a while? Sure you don’t need any help?”

She smirked. “Think I can manage for the time being.”

He shot her a final glance, narrowing his eyes. “This would all be so much easier if you were a bad employee.”

“Can’t always get what you want,” she quipped, then turned as a customer approached. “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t take the earrings she tried to bribe me with.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better in the slightest.”

Scoffing, she shook her head again as Luke disappeared behind the curtain. A smile formed on her face as she rang up the tourist family, and she even shot them a wave as they made their way out the door. Her breath caught in her throat, however, when she saw Jess’s head nearing the diner entrance through the front window. Immediately, she clutched at her necklace and bit the inside of her cheek. She’d awoken in the morning to find Jess gone, borrowed clothes folded and left on her desk. She’d taken pity on him. Swept up in the moment, in seeing him again, in seeing him shivering in the backseat of his car. But his side of the bed empty, without a word, brought a bad taste to her mouth. It was becoming familiar. She didn’t want it to become familiar. She didn’t want to admit how much his leaving had affected her, and maybe she didn’t truly feel it until she saw his face again. For just a moment, it felt easy and right. Like it had. Like home. But the morning was cruel and brought reality. She’d seen him pushing his car through town in the direction of Gypsy’s while she was on her way to work. His car would be fixed and he would be gone again. And she would be left behind. 

Hoping to look busy, she took her notepad out of her apron, doodling mindlessly. The bell over the door jingled, and her heart sped up. Chewing on the eraser of her pencil, she made a pointed effort not to notice him right away. 

Jess came up in front of her and tapped slightly on the counter. “Hey, Stevens.”

“Hi,” she replied, eyebrows raised. “You get your car to Gypsy’s? I saw the little parade this morning.”

Jess nodded and sighed softly. “Yeah. Not gonna be fixed until tonight.”

“Tragic,” she quipped flatly. “Are you gonna to go to the firelight festival to pass time, Mr. Model Citizen?”

“Is that what’s going on out there?” he asked with a frown, groaning dramatically.

“Same time every year, Mariano.”

“Just another Hallmark holiday,” he said.

Ella turned away, masking the twist of memory in her heart, to make a fresh pot of coffee. “Do you need something?”

Clearing his throat, Jess looked away from her and over to the checkered curtain. “Is Luke upstairs? I left a notebook I need up there.”

“A notebook?” she asked quizzically.

Jess ran a hand over his mouth. “Just got some things in it that I need.”

“Specific.”

“Aren’t I?”

She scoffed, then faced him again. “Well, Luke’s up there. Along with your mom and Prince Charming.”

“Fuck. You met him?”

“Oh, yes.”

“And?” he asked expectantly. 

She snorted a laugh. “I really think you have to see it to believe it.”

Blowing out a long, tired breath, Jess walked towards the stairs. He stopped short when he made it to the curtain, tilting his head back to her with a questioning look. Messy hair, hands on her hips, pencil behind her ear. A vision from his past, making his stomach fill with butterflies every time he saw her. But her hazel gaze didn’t quite meet his own, off somewhere he couldn’t reach. Biting down on his lip hard, he crossed his arms over his chest. 

“Are you okay, Eleanor?” 

Nodding, she attempted a weak smile his way. “Always, Jess. Are  _ you _ okay?”

“Yeah...yeah. I’m okay. Thank you...for last night.”

“You’re welcome.”

And then she heard his footfalls trudging up the creaky wooden stairs. Fiddling with her necklace, she swallowed down her thoughts and plastered on another grin as Lane bounced in, announcing she’d found the perfect house to rent with her band.

. . .

Other than old books and lavender, bonfire was one of Ella’s favorite smells. She had her ratty black peacoat draped around her small frame. Rory and Lane had convinced her to go to the festival, both of them with the night free. And she figured maybe some time away from her bedroom and the diner would clear her mind. Spaces which were so crowded with her memories. She would just have to wait until Jess was gone, and she would be connected with him only through the phone line again. She wouldn’t have to feel the way her heartbeat picked up every time she got near him, touched him. And the worst part was, the feeling wasn’t bad. She remembered it. She missed it. How relaxed he made her feel. 

But, as soon as she’d spotted her father and Fiona walking hand-in-hand through the square, she’d retreated to the bench near the bookstore to draw. Rory and Lane tried to get her to join them for candied apples and popcorn, but she wasn’t hungry. And, besides, there were plans to meet up at the Gilmore house later for some movies anyway. She just needed a moment of quiet, to herself. Without being pulled in so many directions. Though her hands were shaking from the cold, she managed a sketch of Jess’s car, two ghosts in the front seat, all tires flat. 

She saw his jacket before she saw his face, spotting the familiar black leather out of the corner of her eye as he sat down next to her. Neither of them said a word for a moment, the continuous buzz of town activity and the crackling of the bonfire filling their ears. 

“I like it,” Jess said, looking over her shoulder at the drawing.

Ella blew a breath out her nose and stopped shading. Leaning back against the bench, she shot him a momentary glance before shifting her eyes out to town square. “You always say that.”

“And it’s always true.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she scoffed, shaking her head a little. 

“I’m serious. Who wouldn’t love a drawing of their car which could inspire nightmares?” he asked, a smirk on his face.

Pursing her lips, Ella tore the page out of her sketchbook. She signed and dated it in the bottom corner and handed it over to him. “It’ll bring you more joy than it brings me, then.”

Taking the drawing, his teasing expression faded as he noticed the wistful quality to her eyes. The one he had seen earlier. “Thanks,” he muttered quietly.

“Though you weren’t coming to this?” she said, gesturing to the roaring fire in the middle of town.

“Me neither. Gypsy said she still needs about a half hour.” He glanced down at his watch for what felt like the millionth time in a day, then shoved his hands in his pockets. 

“So, you’re actually gonna say goodbye this time?” she asked, finally looking over at him with earnest, eyebrows raised. 

His gaze dropped to his shoes and he struggled for a moment to find words. But her eyes, looking at him in the light of the fire. They made him feel ways he couldn’t even articulate. “Look, Elle, I’m sorry. Luke freaked out on me when I told him about graduation-”

“Oh, yeah, and speaking of Luke,” she interrupted. “Did you get into a fight with him or something earlier? You stormed out and then he left like twenty minutes later. He was totally wasted. We had to close early for the festival and he still wasn’t back.”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth. “He was trying to make me say something to Liz about TJ. Get her to come to her senses. I tried to tell him it was useless, but he just wouldn’t hear me.”

She hummed in acknowledgement. “And you met TJ?”

“Unfortunately.”

“You think he’ll turn out like the others?” she asked, but there was less fire in her tone. There were so many words on the tip of her tongue, but she was tired. And her heart dropped into her stomach when she even thought of saying them. 

Jess chuckled bitterly. “I  _ know _ he will. He’ll take all her money, or drink all her booze, or...worse. And then it’ll be mine and Luke’s job to fix it. But, hey, where would we be without  _ family _ ?”

Ella smirked humorlessly at the thick sarcasm which laced his tone. “Yeah.  _ Where _ ?” Then, after a moment: “I think my dad and Fiona are gonna get a divorce.”

“Really?” he asked, but didn’t look surprised.

Though it wasn’t as if she felt shocked, either. “The whole new baby thing isn’t working out. I don’t know. I don’t think my dad cares either way, but that only makes her more angry. They scream and throw things at each other. The way he and my mom used to fight. And then Fiona apologizes and she tries to make him happy again. But it never makes any difference. He hasn’t been happy in years. Maybe never. But it’s not her fault. And I feel bad for her. But, right now, it just is.”

Jess nodded, listening. He noticed how she ran the key across the chain of her necklace, and a pang of nostalgia hit him. 

“At least Adam likes high school. He’s already making waves in the science club, from what he tells me. Figures. And at least he gets along with my dad and Fiona way better than I ever have,” she said, shrugging her shoulders dismissively.

“At least,” Jess murmured sadly.

Ella managed a thin smile. “Makes sense.  _ He  _ doesn’t look exactly like her.”

Before Jess knew what he was doing, he took her free hand from where it clutched the metal of the bench and gave it a squeeze. For a moment, her cold hand was rigid and unmoving in his grasp. But, clearing her throat and looking down in surprise between them, she finally reciprocated. Gave his hand a squeeze back. Then, she flashed him another tiny smile, and disentangled her fingers. The moment had gone, and Ella hoped the chilly air would be able to cool the flush which rose on her cheeks at his touch. An awkward tension passed between the two of them, both at a loss for words. The town troubadour, strumming his old guitar near the entrance to the high school, suddenly caught Jess’s searching eye.

“This whole thing is meaningless and expensive,” he began, looking out over the many blue concession tents and the people with solo cups full of Founder’s Day punch, which tasted as close to gasoline as punch could. “But the music’s not completely terrible.”

Scoffing, Ella shook her head. “Too happy.”

A fond smile crossed over Jess’s face, the most genuine one she’d seen from him in quite a while. “Anyone ever tell you how unpredictable you are?”

“Shut up,” she replied, cracking a smile of her own.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is much appreciated!


	23. The Steinbeck Agreement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella makes some major changes in her life, and Jess reluctantly returns to town for his mother’s wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning: This chapter contains discussions of physical/emotional abuse. Please proceed with caution.*

The afternoon light streamed golden through the diner windows as Liz and Luke came in, Ella leaning on the counter with her sketchbook in front of her. Too enveloped in the drawing of a field of murderous daisies, Ella didn’t even register what they were talking about until she heard them mention her name. 

“...maybe Ella could do it,” Liz said, tilting her head at the young woman with dark eye makeup and EAT ME printed across her shirt.

“Hm?” Ella asked, looking up from her sketch with furrowed brows. 

Luke rolled his eyes at her distracted nature. Ever since she’d moved out of her childhood home, she’d been in a worse mood, focused almost solely on her terrifying drawings. He’d had to tell her a couple times to make sure to keep the sketchbook off the counter when there were children present. 

“Be a flower girl,” Liz said, a big, dreamy smile on her face. She was dressed in a long, floral red dress. “Most of the Renaissance fair crowd doesn’t have small children. But if we’re gonna have a wedding, we’re gonna have a  _ real  _ wedding. Can’t be a wedding without a flower girl.”

“Sorry, whose wedding?” Ella asked, straightening up and raising an eyebrow. 

“Mine, sweetie.” Liz had a high, wispy voice that reminded Ella of the fairies she used to imagine playing in her mother’s garden. “We’re having it right out in the square next week. It’s gonna be beautiful, all our Renaissance fair friends will be there, and it’ll have this great medieval theme! And  _ you _ could be the flower girl!”

“Oh, I don’t…” Ella began with a shy smile, but Liz only waved a dismissive hand at her, continuing.

“I can loan you one of my fair dresses,” she said excitedly, not picking up on Ella’s doubtful expression. 

“Yeah, Ella. You can finally perfect your whole Bride of Frankenstein look,” Luke teased. His expression was far more pleasant than Ella could have predicted. Happy. Happy, in its simplest form, looked so strange on Luke. The past few months had seen the true finalization of his divorce and his having to watch Lorelai date some rich snob from her father’s company. But the news seemed to brighten his mood inexplicably. She was sure the laughter at her expense wasn’t exactly a drag on the day either. 

Rolling her eyes, Ella shot him a pointed glance. “Y’know, you would be lost without your best waitress.”

“I’m quaking in my boots. Besides, I’ve got Lane working for me now, anyway.”

Though she narrowed her eyes at him, she could think of nothing more to say. He was right. She would never quit on him. The diner was more of a home to her than anywhere else in the world. Hell, it had almost single-handedly fed her during the worst few months of her life. Along with Lorelai’s frequent feasts of junk food.

“I can just see it, Ella! It’ll be so much fun and you’d look so beautiful!” Liz exclaimed, grabbing one of Ella’s hands in a pleading gesture. 

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella did her best to protest. She still wasn’t Liz’s biggest fan, despite wherever it was that she stood with Jess. The alcohol, the neglect. But Luke seemed not entirely angry about the match, especially considering his view on TJ when the two had first been introduced back in February. And Liz’s smile was so large, so radiant. Her eyes were desperate and almost kind. Heaving a huge sigh, Ella nodded. Luke was much more than her boss. And he gave a smile so rare when she agreed. She would do it for Luke, she decided. In fact, it was the least she could do. 

. . .

Sat on the lumpy couch in Lane’s living room, Ella found herself smiling just a touch. The band, finally named Hep Alien, was getting better with every practice. Though the room was piled high with dirty clothes and video game equipment, and it remained cluttered no matter how many times Ella tried to clean it up, she was beginning to get more comfortable. Her king mattress was so old anyway, and sleeping on the plaid couch wasn’t much different. As she had run from the only house she had ever known, she’d packed as much as she could into her station wagon, which had once been her aunt Julie’s. It wasn’t like her old room fit much anyway. Mostly, the backseat was filled with her records, books, clothes. 

Loud music making her ears ring, she sketched Lane behind the drums, living the way she had always wanted. As fun as it was watching band practice nearly every night, Ella was eager for her summer classes to start. If she played her cards right, she could graduate a year early with art as a minor. Ella’s mind drifted to the night she left, the day after she finally finished her first year of college. And, over a modest celebratory dinner, the conversation had drifted, as it always did, to the future.

. . .

**_two and a half weeks earlier_ **

_ Tugging with one hand at the ends of her hair, Ella felt an odd mixture of distasteful nostalgia and happiness in her stomach. The lasagna tasted exactly as her mother’s had, and Ella knew Fiona had followed the recipe, scribbled in the back of the ancient cookbook, exactly. But she would keep quiet. Fiona truly seemed proud of her, beaming and giving her a hug the moment she walked through the door after work. Slowly, very slowly, Ella was beginning to accept it, the motherly love. Though occasionally it still rubbed her the wrong way, it didn’t send her spiralling into anger and melancholy as it once had. _

_ And it wasn’t as though Fiona was a bad person. She had a sunny disposition, glossy hair, expressive eyes. Ella could understand how her father would want to marry her. But she was just too unlike her mother. Would never understand Ella the way her mother had. It still felt like bizarro-world when Fiona tried to give her advice or compliment her on her piano skills. But she could manage dinner every once and a while, and accept pride in her academic accomplishments. She was on the Dean’s List, after all.  _

_ Adam pushed his food around his plate as he spoke. From the glances they’d shared, Ella could tell he tasted the same memories from childhood she did.  _

_ “We’ve still got about a month, but I really think we can get first place,” Adam said of his mathlete competition. His voice had gotten deeper, and he was finally growing taller. Ella could tell he would end up looking a lot like Noah.  _

_ “That’s great,” Jake said, nodding with a half-smile.  _

_ “Really is,” Fiona echoed, grinning widely.  _

_ As silence fell on the four of them, forks scraped on the Corelle plates and throats were cleared. Awkward silences had quickly become staples of family dinners. Eventually, Jake began twisting his wedding ring and looked straight at Ella, who sat at his left side. The light in the peach kitchen was bright despite the cloudy darkness outside. The May evening was humid and buzzing with cicadas.  _

_ “And what about you, Ellie?” Jake asked. _

_ Looking up carefully, Ella put down her fork and faced him. “What about me?” _

_ “Do you have any prospects for the summer? Besides the diner?” _

_ She shook her head. “No. Unless Patty needs me to fill in. Might start painting more. I’m thinking a small easel would fit pretty well near the window in my room.” _

_ Narrowing his eyes doubtfully, Jake tilted his head slightly. “I don’t know. Seems like a waste of money.” _

_ “Why?” she asked instantly. _

_ “We don’t have to discuss this now,” Fiona interjected patiently. _

_ Adam looked down at his plate as he ate.  _

_ Jake breathed a frustrated sigh through his nose. “You’re majoring in history. You’re living with us for at least three more years. I don’t think now’s the time for pipe dreams.” _

_ “Hm,” Ella nodded, giving a thin, vicious smile. “It’s funny you say that. When mom was alive, you always thought I should put as much time into my art as she put into her music.” _

_ “You were a kid. Things change. The best you can hope for is being a history teacher at Stars Hollow High, and you have to be happy with it,” Jake explained with cold logic in his voice. His eyebrows were raised in condescension.  _

_ Ella’s cheeks heated up. “Oh, so all this time you’ve just been humoring me? Telling me I had talent?” _

_ “Not exactly. But you’re not O’Keefe, either.” _

_ “Never said I was,” Ella snapped, standing up from her seat. “I can't do this right now. I’m buying my fucking paint, dad.” _

_ “Hey!” he shouted, rising from his own seat and following her as she stormed into the living room towards the hall entrance. “Don’t you use that language with me, young lady!” _

_ “Why not?! Might as well let you know how I actually talk if you’re gonna let me know how  _ you _ actually feel!” she yelled back, gesturing wildly with her hands.  _

_ Jake rolled his eyes at his only daughter. “Toughen up, Ellie! You’ve only got so much time on this earth and I’m not gonna watch you waste it on your doodles!” _

_ “Oh, and lecturing about the revolutionary war in the town where I’ve always lived wouldn’t be a waste?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. _

_ “At least you’ll make a living! You’ll still be around people who love you, who take care of you. You’ll always be near us,” he argued. _

_ Ella let out a bitter, humorless bark of laughter. “People who take care of me?! I’ve been taking care of you for almost  _ five _ years! All of you!  _ Especially _ you! When mom died,  _ I _ was the one who fed us,  _ I _ was the one who cleaned and tried to cook! And you did fuck-all except drink and lie around crying!” _

_ Eyes darkening, Jake took a step closer to her and she immediately recoiled. “I lost my wife. You will  _ never _ understand that!” _

_ “I lost my mother!” she screamed, hands clenched at her sides, so hard her knuckles turned white. Angry tears snuck up on her eyes but she swallowed them back to the best of her ability.  _

_ “If I’d have known how much you’d bitch about helping out, doing what a daughter should, I never would’ve let you take that job at Luke’s!” _

_ “Doing what a  _ daughter should _?” she asked immediately, eyebrows shooting up. Her jaw was set firm with tension.  _

_ Fiona appeared from the kitchen behind her husband, putting a hand to his shoulder. “Baby, let’s just all take a minute to cool down.” _

_ “You brother and I needed you and all you could do was complain!” he roared. _

_ Ella scoffed. “ _ You _ needed  _ me _? You needed me to keep you alive long enough for you to find a new wife to  _ coddle _ you and  _ baby _ you and  _ cry _ with you when you told her about your tragic high school sweetheart! Why do you think she hates you, huh?” _

_ Her stomach did a flip when she saw the hurt on Fiona’s face from the corner of her eye, but a fire burned so hot inside her, and she couldn’t keep her words contained any longer. She’d tried to play the dutiful woman of the house long enough.  _

_ “Do  _ not _ talk about my marriage!” Jake warned. “It’s none of your business!” _

_ “Of course it’s my business! It’ll be my business when I have to pick up the pieces once she leaves you!” _

_ “You have always been such a little brat! You were a  _ nightmare _ to raise for me  _ and _ for Sophia!” A vein had popped out in his forehead, and he shrugged Fiona’s touch from his shoulder. _

_ “Fuck you!”  _

Crack! _ Ella seemed to hear it before she felt it: a sharp, searing pain as his open palm struck her cheek. It was a feeling she hadn’t experienced in so long, not since she was ten and had mouthed off at the dinner table. A sinking feeling struck her stomach as silence filled the room. Because she suddenly discovered she had always been expecting it. Always knew it would happen again, someday, somehow. And she’d been almost surprised he hadn’t smacked her in the months following her mother’s death. But, the levee had to break. It always did.  _

_ She brought a hand to her stinging flesh, and her father stopped in his tracks. Remorse washed over his features and he went to reach out for her. Flinching away from him, Ella felt her fingers grip at her necklace.  _

_ “Ellie, I’m so sorry, baby. I  _ told _ you not to use that language with me. And you know how  _ my _ old man was about-” _

_ “No,” she said softly, shaking her head. “No.” _

. . .

The final, strong bass note of the White Stripes song Hep Alien played broke her from her memories. She could see the dull sky as she packed up her car the best she could, the night crossing over into morning as she offered Adam a quick goodbye. He’d been upset, but also somewhat calm. And when he’d come to visit her a week later during one of her shifts at the diner, he told her he had always known Ella would leave. From the first night after their mother had died, he’d known. Though he knew it was fruitless to try and convince her not to feel guilty, Adam had told her not to worry. He could handle home on his own, he was confident. He’d never been slapped. And they were both smart enough to understand why.

And when she’d come to Lane in the early hours of the morning, still painfully holding back her tears with the entire contents of her life parked out on the street in the station wagon, she knew everything would change. Lane had welcomed her with open arms, of course. Had seen Ella cry for only the third time in all their years knowing each other. There was something so sweet about her new freedom, but a heaviness still sat in Ella’s heart. Constant guilt and fear for Adam, heartache over her mother, who she still missed everyday. And she felt so lost, it was all-consuming. She didn’t know what the next step was. Would she still be able to pay for college? Would she ever speak to her stepmother again? Would she even stay a history major, if she was lucky enough to continue her education? She had never been more glad for Luke’s, and for her friends. There were few comforts in her life, continued existence as a waitress, or knowing Adam was only a few blocks away in case something ever happened. She clung to the only constants left for dear life. She’d been dreaming of leaving the house for so long, but it managed to be even harder than she thought it would be. A gloomy cloud had been hanging over her for a few weeks, as she walked through her existence with an aimlessness she had never known before.

Clapping some, Ella offered a big smile and watched as Zach, Gil, and Bryan began to talk amongst themselves about the new tattoo Gil had shown up to practice with. Lane excused herself from the conversation only because of the temptation. She wanted a tattoo, really did, but didn’t want to increase the chances of her mother disowning her any more than she already had. Instead, she came to join Ella on the couch, plopping down and putting an arm around her friend. Ella kept her smile and rested her head against Lane’s shoulder. Since moving in, Ella was reminded every day of what a wonderful person Lane was. They came from such different worlds, but never judged each other, always took care of each other, helped each other with their respective escapes. Working together at Luke’s had been even more fun than Ella could have ever imagined. It was a welcome end to the long, lonely year after Jess’s departure, just she and Luke sulking around together. There was a place for sulking, but the time for it seemed to be coming to an end. 

“You guys were fucking great,” Ella said, then gestured down to the picture she had just drawn. “You’re a regular Meg White up there. Really.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Lane chirped, beaming with pride. 

Snorting a laugh, Ella put the sketchbook aside and bit back a yawn. “Don’t I know it.”

“Hey, are you okay?” Lane asked, brows furrowing. 

It almost made her want to laugh. Over the past two weeks, Lane had asked her that question more than had once seemed humanly possible. “Yeah, Lane. I’m fine. Just a long day. Got roped into being a flower girl.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Luke’s sister. Liz. Have you met her before? You weren’t working at the diner yet the last time she was in town,” she said tiredly. 

“No, I haven’t,” Lane replied. “Jess’s mom, right?”

“She is indeed.”

“And  _ why _ exactly are you filling what is traditionally a role for a girl in pigtails and Mary Janes?”

Blowing out a sigh, Ella shook her head slightly. “I don’t even know. She just sort of told me...didn’t exactly ask. It’s next week in town square, so there’s not enough time. And Luke really seemed like he wanted me to and I just...I don’t know. Maybe she’s a witch.”

“Always a possibility,” Lane nodded, going along with the bit as she always did. “And have you heard from Jess lately?”

Again, Ella shook her head. “He still doesn’t have an actual phone number, and now I don’t either. Not optimum communication conditions.”

“Yeah, that’s not ideal,” Lane said, commiserating.

“I wish it had crossed my mind, but I moved out in about forty-five minutes,” Ella said, fiddling with her necklace. 

A guilty look painted her features. But she’d only been out of the house a little while, maybe he hadn’t called.

“Do you think he’ll come for the wedding?”

Ella scoffed. “Not a chance in hell.”

. . .

“Are you sure I can’t help with anything else?” Ella asked, arms crossed over her chest. 

Her chewed pencil sat behind her ear, and her hair fell in a loose, hasty braid over her shoulder. One of her booted feet tapped constantly against the tiled floor, and she smoothed over her blue skirt every few minutes. And she only looked half as stressed as Luke. The wedding was in two days, and nearly everything had been dumped on him. As a consequence, Ella had been dealing with the diner business while Luke argued on the phone with vendors who could give him the proper medieval food and decor.

The midday lull had finally come, and Lorelai stopping in was sure to bring a little sunshine. Though she had been pretty overwhelmed herself, lately. The new Dragonfly Inn opening was only weeks away.

Luke shook his head at Ella when he’d finished giving Lorelai the rundown of the week’s events. “Not right now, kid. That was the last call I had to make. At least for the time being.”

“Just say the word,” Ella shrugged, finally letting herself relax a touch, leaning her forearms onto the counter. 

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, am I caught up on everything, then?” Lorelai chimed in, brows raised and eyes expectant. 

“Yeah, I’d say so…” Luke began, but the bell over the door jingled. 

A familiar scowl appeared in the diner’s entrance, and Jess trudged up to the counter with a finger pointed at Luke. “I’m not paying for a motel, so I’m stayin’ with you!”

Lorelai gasped dramatically and narrowed her eyes at Luke. “Liar!”

As he passed on his way to the stairs, Jess gave Ella a curt nod. She reciprocated, but felt unnerved by his demeanor. Was it shy? Was it angry? It certainly didn’t seem pleasant. They hadn’t spoken in nearly three weeks, the longest time since he had first run away to California. 

“I didn’t think he was coming,” Luke muttered, watching Jess disappear up the stairs. A wistful, fond smile crossed Luke’s lips. “I went to see him in New York.”

“You did?” Ella asked, brows furrowed.

“Yeah. It was a total pig sty and he may or may not be a drug dealer. But, hey, at least he came,” Luke said, shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and wonder. 

Sighing through her nose, Ella looked down at her feet and bit at the inside of her cheek. Her gaze focused on nothing in particular, thoughts swimming around and colliding with each other inside her already crowded mind. “Yeah. At least. I’m gonna take my ten minutes. That alright?”

Luke was busy, back to his banter with Lorelai, and only gave a half nod her way. She snickered at how enveloped in each other the two of them were. Without much effort, she slipped behind the curtain and climbed up the stairs unnoticed. Nerves coursed through her, and her heart sped up in her chest. She gave two short, harsh knocks on the window of the shabby apartment door. 

After waiting a moment and receiving no response, she rolled her eyes to herself. Who was she to be nervous? He was pretty much her best friend, besides Lane. And she hadn’t done anything wrong. With a new, determined quality to her steps, she walked through the front door and found him just where she expected, on his old bed, nose already buried in a book. 

Crossing her arms over her chest, she plastered on a confident smirk and sat down on the end of the bed. She recognized the book instantly, her own copy buried in the pile of belongings in her car:  _ Sweet Thursday _ by John Steinbeck. 

“The only author we could ever agree on,” she said, eyeing the book though Jess still hadn’t lifted his head. 

“Pretty much,” he replied flatly, biting at his bottom lip as he focused on the words in front of him.

Sighing shortly through her nose, Ella turned to face him fully, sitting criss-cross applesauce on the familiar brown afghan. Jess unconsciously brought his feet in closer to make room for her, his knees up in the air, blocking her view of his face slightly. But she could see his hair, longer still and without any gel. 

“See you’ve completely ditched the pompadour look,” she muttered. “Couldn’t handle being mistaken for an Elvis impersonator any longer, huh?”

“My God, you should do stand-up,” Jess said dryly, eyes widening in feigned amazement as he kept reading.

Shaking her head slightly, Ella let a harsh chuckle escape her lips and furrowed her brows at him. “Out with it, jackass.”

“Hm?” he asked dismissively, taking a pencil from his pocket to underline a phrase. 

Ella pursed her lips in frustration. “Well, it’s obvious you’re pissed. I say we skip the passive-aggressive theatrics and you just spill it. But, hey, this is a democracy. You also get a vote.”

Rolling his eyes, Jess finally shot a glance over his knees. Heaving a sigh, he shut his book and tossed it into the open duffel bag on the floor next to the bed. In one swift movement, he mirrored her sitting position and tilted his head at her in askance. 

“Have you been doing a lot of hard partying lately? Really taking advantage of this college thing? Or have you been avoiding my calls?” he asked, though he wasn’t angry, despite the sarcasm. There was a defeated tone in his voice which surprised her; almost disappointed. 

Biting the inside of her cheek, she gave another small shake of her head, and she spoke firmly. “Well, first of all, I’m not required to take your calls.  _ I _ asked  _ you _ to call me because  _ you _ fucked off to California without telling me and I wanted to make sure you hadn’t been serial-killed.”

Jess gave a begrudging nod, almost preparing for a dressing down. 

“But, no, I haven’t been avoiding your calls, alright? Paranoid much?”

He scoffed, but she cut him off before he could retort. 

“I moved out.”

Immediately, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You did?”

She nodded. “Yeah. About two weeks ago. Wasn’t exactly seamless, and I bet my dad will disconnect my old line at some point. I’ve been staying at Lane’s with her and the band. They don’t have a phone yet.  _ And _ you change your number pretty much every week, so it’s not like I could let you know.”

A smile crossed his features. “I’m...that’s great, Eleanor.”

She snorted a laugh of disbelief. “Yeah, it’s so great living out of my car and sleeping on Lane’s forty-year-old couch.”

Jess shrugged. “Gotta start somewhere.”

“I guess.”

He looked flabbergasted. “I’m so proud of you.”

A blush heated her cheeks and she chuckled breathily in confusion. “What?”

“For moving out. I mean, I can’t imagine it was a quiet affair,” he said, face falling slightly. 

Again, she shook her head, glancing down at the space between them on the comforter and clutching her necklace. “No. It wasn’t.”

“What happened?” he ventured without hesitation, searching her face and exposed arms for any yellowed bruises or healing cuts. Sometimes, he could give even Ella a run for her money when assuming the worst. 

Ella shrugged noncommittally, throwing a glance down at her watch, then facing him again with a small smile. “Long story. I’ve only got a couple minutes left on break. You gonna be in town for a little while?”

“Until the minute the wedding ends.”

“Okay, we’ll find some time to catch up,” she said, smirking. “Luke tells me you’re a drug dealer now. You’ve gotta let me in on all your behind-the-scenes  _ Scarface _ facts.”

Jess rolled his eyes. “God, Luke is such a drama queen. I’m a messenger.”

“Nice cover. Very convincing.”

“Don’t you have coffee to pour?” he shot back, defensive. 

Snickering, Ella rose from the bed, smoothing down her skirt and apron. “Whatever keeps the guilt at bay, tough guy.”

“G’bye,” he muttered, grumpy, as he settled back against the wall and picked up his book again. But, just before Ella reached the door: “What time are you off, Eleanor?”

“Six-thirty. Luke’s closing up early to play wedding planner,” she said, hand poised over the doorknob. 

Jess chuckled. “Pizza at Antonioli’s tonight?”

“Sure. I even promise not to wear a wire.”

The pillow Jess had thrown barely missed her as she exited the apartment, laughing under her breath.

. . .

Sighing softly, Ella ran the key along the chain of her necklace and looked down at the half-eaten pizza crusts on her paper plate. The old wooden table in the pizza place was slightly sticky, and carved with the names of various people and couples who had shared a pie there before. But, they could watch the Stars Hollow evening turn from golden to blue as the sun went down, sitting by the front window. Jess had to leave by eight, and it was half past seven by the time the stars came out. Summer had almost come, and the days were long and bright with sunshine. Chilly breezes swept past at night, but it was getting warmer still. 

“So...yeah. It only took me about forty-five minutes to pack everything up. Didn’t realize how little stuff I had until I could fit almost everything in my trunk and back seat,” she said, a small, humorless smile on her face. 

Jess nodded, rolling a balled-up napkin absently in his hand as he listened, his face stony. “Was it just yelling? Or did he hit you?”

Breathing another long sigh through her nose, Ella bit the inside of her cheek. “Just once. He just slapped me once. He told me not to swear at him, but I-”

“Eleanor,” he interjected, voice firm but gentle. “Once is way too much. Even a slap. It’s way,  _ way _ too many times.”

She only shrugged. “I know. I mean, of course I know that. It’s just…”

Again, he nodded wordlessly. Jess knew what it was like to have a parent, or a step-parent, who used hurt as a tool. And he knew the confusion. Sometimes monsters wore masks. She didn’t have to say anything more. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. 

Ella shook her head. “It’s not  _ your _ fault. And I’m moved out now, Jess.”

“Right...and I meant what I said. I’m so proud of you, Stevens.” Jess reached hesitantly across the table, and took her free hand in his. Gave it one squeeze. 

She flashed him a tiny smile, squeezed it back. Then she disentangled their fingers and tucked her hair behind her ears, clearing her throat and straightening her back. The severity left her features, a new, mischievous twinkle lighting up her hazel eyes. Her chest was less heavy, and she was glad he knew. Glad he could understand with so few words. 

“Proud of you too, Mariano. This time, I didn’t have to watch you step out of a sheriff’s car when you got to town,” she smirked, picking up one of the crusts and taking another bite out of it. 

He frowned. “Ugh, please don’t mention Andy Griffith. That car is  _ my  _ property. The only reason I even called Luke after I got to Venice was to ask about the car and he-”

Still chuckling, Ella raised her hands in surrender, cutting him off. “White flag.”

Jess offered a sardonic, lop-sided smirk. “And, believe or not, Luke will be the sanest person at the bachelor party tonight.”

“Why are you even going?” she asked, brows furrowed as she took a sip of her water, ice melty from time and the May heat seeping through the splintered wood of the front door. 

Shaking his head, Jess glanced down at his watch and noticed he had only ten minutes before he and Luke would have to hop in Luke’s ancient green truck. “I don’t know. Luke mentioned me not wanting to go to Liz, and then she spent thirty minutes babbling until she finally wore me down.”

Pursing her lips, Ella nodded. “Yeah, she’s very persuasive.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re looking at the flower girl,” she admitted, gesturing to herself.

He laughed breathily. “No way.”

“Yep. I’ll be there in the renaissance dress and all. Though, Lorelai said she would make some alterations for me. I’m going over to her house in a little while to sort out the whole corset situation.”

Jess snorted another chuckle. “Good luck.”

“Right back at ya, Mariano,” she teased. “Where on earth would TJ want to go for his bachelor party?”

“It’s a cliché I’m sure you’ll be able to guess on the first try,” Jess said with a dejected frown.

After only a moment with brows furrowed, realization flashed across Ella’s eyes and her expression turned to one of disgust. “Ugh, Jesus. A  _ strip club _ ?”

“I know,” he grumbled. “Believe me, I’ll be there in silent protest.”

“Mouth off to one of the owners if you get the chance, would you? For me?” she asked. 

“Will do.”

. . .

“I don’t hate my mother,” Jess grumbled to Luke, rolling his eyes slightly.

He ran a hand through his messy hair, crossing his leather-clad arms. Maybe he should’ve known he would get into a fight with TJ at some point, considering his history with Liz’s past boyfriends and husbands. All it had taken was TJ hitting the Austen novel out of his hands, as he read begrudgingly in the low-lit strip club. And they’d come to blows. And Luke was pissed. They were sat down at a table in Luke’s, the diner completely dark glowing only from the streetlamps and twinkle lights in the square. All the chairs, save for the two they sat in, were stacked up on the red tables. Luke was interrogating Jess about why he’d come for the wedding anyway, if he was so mad about it. As if he hadn’t stormed into Jess’s apartment trying to convince him to come only a few days earlier. 

“You don’t?” Luke asked, eyebrows raised in expectation. “Then why  _ did _ you come, anyway, if you’re so against your mother finding happiness? And it’s pretty clear you hate me.” 

Jess sighed heavily at Luke’s dramatics. “I don’t  _ hate _ you. I came here because of you.”

“Stop that,” Luke scolded in disbelief. 

“You said it was important to you. Remember?” Jess asked, voice tight with annoyance. 

“I didn’t think you were listening.”

“Oh, I was listening.”

Luke stared at his nephew for a long moment, leaning back in his chair. “So, you don’t hate your mom. You don’t hate me. But, really, all it took was me coming to New York to yell at you?”

Sighing, Jess said nothing. His lips were set in a thin line, and he averted his gaze from his uncle. He ran a hand over his mouth. 

Eyes widening, Luke cracked a knowing grin. “You came because of Ella? But, you haven’t been together in...what? A year?”

Jess gave a sheepish nod. “Yeah, but, we still talk every couple weeks. She didn’t tell you?”

Luke snorted. “Well, I remember her chewing you out that first time you called. Telling you to let her know you were alive. But I didn’t know you were really  _ talking _ .”

Running a hand over his mouth again, Jess gave another nod. 

“So?” Luke asked, prodding. “Why’d you need to come here...if you call so often anyway?”

Jess bit at his bottom lip, squirming under the questions. “Since she moved out, she hasn’t been picking up. I didn’t know what happened. I wanted to...make sure. Because…”

“What?”

“I think...I mean...I’m in love with her, alright?” Jess spit out, an anxious bite in his voice. 

Luke’s eyebrows shot up, and a flabbergasted look formed on his face. “Wow!...You  _ think _ you’re in love with her?”

Jess shrugged. “Pretty sure. But, I’ve been thinking that since I was seventeen. And she doesn’t believe in love, anyway.”

Scoffing, Luke shook his head. “I know she says that, but it’s crap. What do you love about her, Jess?”

“Excuse me?” Jess asked, brows furrowing.

Luke rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Jess, I think it’s great that you know how you feel. And like I said earlier, I’m not gonna keep trying to change you. You are who you are. And  _ Ella _ is who she is. If you’re gonna tell her how you feel, you have to do it carefully. And you have to be sure. So, tell me what you love about her.”

Scowling, Jess looked long and hard at his uncle. “What, do you wanna hold hands and skip afterwards?”

“Do you want to do this right or not?”

Finally, Jess relented. “Okay.  _ Fine _ . I love that she...she’s so passionate. About  _ everything _ . And she talks with her hands. And she eats peanut butter right out of the jar when she’s sick. And she hums while she works, without even realizing it. She..she cares so much about her friends and her brothers and her aunt and...I don’t know. She does everything for other people. She doesn’t think she’s a people person. But she really is. Even the way she talks to customers...you can really see it.

“And she’s such an amazing artist. She can  _ feel _ art. And music. I’ve never met anyone else like that before. I can talk to her for hours...or not say anything at all. I miss her when she’s gone. Everything is...just better when I’m with her.”

When Jess looked up again, he found his uncle with a smug smirk. As Jess was speaking, his eyes had taken on a far-off quality. And though he didn’t want to be talking, his lips had started to curl upward at the corners anyway. Just from thinking of her. Luke recognized everything in Jess’s expression. 

Jess shook his head slightly, jaw tense, embarrassment swirling in his stomach. “ _ What _ ?”

“Nothing,” Luke said lightly, almost mocking. “I’ve just...never seen that look on your face before.”

Rolling his eyes again, Jess scoffed angrily. 

“Alright, alright,” Luke said, fighting off good-natured laughter. “Open two-way communication is the foundation of love…”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	24. Tragedy of Gatsby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess walks his mother down the aisle. Later, he and Ella address issues from their past.

Raucous laughter filled the diner as Liz had her makeshift bachelorette party. Ella could only roll her eyes at the obnoxious women, only growing louder as they drank more wine, along with whatever the one dressed in loud shades of pink, Carrie, had in her flask. With the wedding fast approaching, only one more day, Luke and Ella were doing their best to keep calm. They had closed Luke’s for the afternoon to allow for the modest party, consisting of four middle-aged Stars Hollow women drinking and uttering cliché nonsense. But, they had also (somehow) been assigned the task of making the food for the festivities. Ella had no idea where Luke had acquired the large, silver rotisserie cooker which sat on the diner counter, and she was almost too afraid to ask. 

Large turkey legs spun around inside the hot plexiglass contraption, and more sat on a plate on the counter. Ella stood with the manual in her hands, a crease of concentration between her brows, trying to decipher the vague instructions. Though Luke was asking Liz if she had any idea what to do, Ella knew the effort was futile. As with most of the other wedding plans, Liz would be offering little to no help. Her personality wasn’t totally asinine, but Ella was beginning to understand the many complaints Luke and Jess had about Liz. She certainly wasn’t amazing at problem-solving. 

“Let me see it,” Luke said, putting the roasted leg which he had held up to examine back down on the plate. He reached his hand out for the manual.

Ella sighed, not looking up at him. “You already read it. You need fresh eyes.”

“I think I saw something that’ll help. I’ll try and find it,” Luke continued, extending his hand to her further. 

Shrugging, Ella finally tore her eyes away from the words and handed the book back over to him. “Godspeed, boss.”

Just then, Jess appeared from behind the curtain and came over to the end of the counter. “I need to get some batteries. I’ll be back.”

“What? For your  _ Scarface _ beeper?” Ella asked, eyebrows raised.

“Hey, don’t get distracted. You’ve got legs to cook,” Jess scolded playfully, but frowned as his mother called over to him. Seeing her within a five foot radius of alcohol was enough to put him slightly on edge.

“Girls, this is Jess,” Liz said, taking her son by the shoulders and over to the table to show him off to her friends. 

Jess was met with a flirtatious chorus of “Hello handsome!” and other such greetings. And he immediately heard Ella snort back a laugh to his left. He shot her a glare and she feigned an innocent look. 

“He’s gonna walk me down the aisle,” Liz said. “Is that cool, or what?” 

Behind the counter, Ella raised her eyebrows in surprise. It was the first she was hearing of it.

“It’s no big deal,” Jess replied dismissively. 

“It’s a very big deal,” Liz insisted, a hand still placed on his shoulder. Then, she turned back to Ella, who was staring quizzically into the rotisserie cooker. “And Ella’s filling in as my flower girl. I gave her one of my dresses and everything.”

“Oh, you’ll be great,” Carrie smiled at Ella through sips of her drink. “And those Renaissance dresses Liz showed me? They’ll squish your boobs right up to your neck! It’ll be fabulous!”

“Yeah,” Ella said flatly, sighing. After trying on the dress last night with Lorelai, they’d taken up the length and taken in the sides. But the corset was relatively static, unable to be adjusted. When laced up all the way, it almost completely cut off her ability to breathe. “I’m just counting down the seconds.”

Outside, a man in a UPS uniform, holding a large package, approached the door. Luke went over to accept the delivery, but it instantly became apparent that there was no package and the man was a stripper. Eyes widening, Ella quickly undid her apron and hung it on the hook in the kitchen. 

“I’m taking a break,” she announced, rounding the corner of the counter to come up beside Jess. 

Luke barely acknowledged her, still lost on what was about to happen. Without thinking, Jess grabbed Ella’s wrist gently to lead her out of the diner before the show could begin. It was clear from the scarlet flush on her cheeks and the amusement on her face that she didn’t want to bear witness to what was about to happen either. 

“Have fun,” Jess muttered dejectedly to his uncle before brushing past him and escaping.

“Have fun with what?” Luke asked cluelessly behind them, but the door had already shut.

Ella erupted in a fit of laughter as Jess released her wrist, walking beside her and shaking his head in disbelief. Birds sung in the afternoon heat, and they went down towards the market, the streets lined with fresh produce and fragrant flowers. Eventually, Ella’s giggles subsided and she caught her breath.

“Luke really should get out more,” she said, letting her long hair out of its ponytail and running her hands through the waves. 

Jess snorted. “Agreed. I’m pretty sure the only movie he’s ever seen is  _ Bridge on the River Kwai _ .”

Pursing her lips, Ella shook her head. “Maybe that’s what he says. But he’s definitely seen more. How else could he keep up with Lorelai?”

“Good point.”

A comfortable pause passed between them as they neared the market, entering the air conditioning as Jess went off in search of batteries. Even after a couple years, Taylor still glared each time Jess came in the store. It was meant to look menacing, but instead it ended up as mostly cartoonish. Ella even shot him a teasing wave as they walked past. In some ways, Taylor felt about Ella the way Mrs. Kim did. She wore dark clothing and makeup, and created ghoulish artwork. And her dead mother, and additional complicated family members, did nothing to help her reputation among the other conservative townsfolk. Not like Ella cared, however; she knew people like Patty and Babette and Maury and Gypsy were the coolest ones. And they all liked her just fine.

“When the hell did batteries start getting so expensive?” Jess grumbled, picking up some generic AAs, skipping over the name brands. 

Ella chuckled. “You sound like such a responsible adult.”

“Hardly,” Jess replied, leading the way to the checkout line. “If I was actually responsible, I’d leave New York. I live in one room with five other guys and I still barely make rent.”

“Ah, so the tragedy of Gatsby holds true?”

As he paid, Jess only chuckled in response. His eyes fell on the ‘Take a Penny, Leave a Penny’ jar while the cashier made change, and he smirked nostalgically. After so long, he could still hear Taylor’s accusations of his stealing every single coin in the jar. He had done it, of course. He just hadn’t expected such an intense response. Those early days in Stars Hollow had shown him just how boring such a sleepy town could be. In New York, there were bigger fish to fry than some kid taking pennies. But still, before they left, he dropped one penny into the familiar jar. For old time’s sake, he told himself. Ella noticed, of course, and raised a brow at him in askance. 

He shrugged as they emerged back into the May sunshine. “What goes around comes around.”

Ella gave a bitter chuckle. “Not that karma bullshit.”

Jess clicked his tongue mockingly. “Kids these days. So cynical.”

“Whatever, James Dean,” Ella said, shaking her head. 

For a moment, Jess’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. She hadn’t called him that name in such a long time. And suddenly, he was seventeen again, ditching school and mouthing off and making out with her to depressing records. But, then, he had to remind himself where he was. He was putting pennies in the jar. Walking his mother down the aisle. Reading the self-help book Luke had given him the night before after a long, strange lecture about the power of communication. Jess wanted to roll his eyes at every word when first starting the book, but he’d read almost half of it already, sitting up in his old bed. And he was beginning to absorb it, understand it. Biting down hard on his lip for a moment, Jess quieted the emotions which sprung up in his mind and only shot her a smirk. 

“I am  _ not _ going back to the diner any time soon. You wanna get some ice cream?” he asked, tucking the batteries into his pocket. 

Nodding, Ella let a fond smile cross her face. Either she hadn’t noticed her nickname slip, or was brushing it off. “Sure. Seems like you’re  _ finally _ developing a concept of weather.”

. . .

Sucking in her stomach, Ella regretted eating so much mint-chocolate-chip.  _ Pretty in Pink _ played at a low volume on the small TV in the Gilmore living room, as Lorelai made the final alterations to Ella’s dress. Standing on a kitchen chair, Ella was off to the side of the couch so as not to block Rory and Sookie’s view of the movie. Along with playing substitute seamstress for the wedding, Lorelai would be meeting with Sookie about some Inn business later in the evening. Ella felt like she had been holding her arms out at her sides for hours, and her shoulders were starting to ache. But she bit back the heavy sigh which threatened to escape her mouth as Sooke, Lorelai, and Rory shot questions at her about Jess’s sudden reappearance. They were doing nothing to hide the suspicion in their voices. 

“He’s really walking his mom down the aisle? Mr. Sid Vicious, Mr. Stealing-My-Beer-and Ditching-My-Dinner, Mr. Steal-Babette’s-Gnome-and-Fake-A-Murder-Outside-Doose’s is walking his mother down the aisle voluntarily?” Lorelai asked through the pins she held in her mouth, taking in the sides of the dress one final time. 

“Anything else to add or are you done?” Ella’s voice was husky and breathless as she watched Jon Cryer dance around Molly Ringwald on screen, the corset tight but still manageable around her torso.

Rory chuckled. “You can’t deny all those pseudonyms are factually accurate.”

“ _ And _ no longer timely, Ms. Amanpour,” Ella quipped flatly.

“But he still got in a fight with TJ at a strip club  _ last night _ ,” Lorelai piped in.

Ela rolled her eyes. “ _ That _ was justified. And happened while he was  _ reading Jane Austen _ in a strip club.”

“You’re grumpy tonight, kitten,” Sookie said, tilting her head over the back of the couch at Ella with a small pout. 

“Comes with the lack of oxygen,” Ella replied.

Lorelai took a final pin from her mouth and stuck it in the hem at Ella’s side. “Why did you agree to this Renaissance nonsense, then?”

“Didn’t really agree to it. And when Liz brought it up, Luke seemed so happy. I just...couldn’t say no to them,” Ella explained. 

Lorelai shot her a mischievous grin. “Ah, there’s that hidden heart of gold. What a shame that it’s three sizes too small.”

“I’m not losing any sleep over it,” Ella said.

Rory snickered. 

“Hey, I’m not the only one trying to add a few years to Luke’s life this week,” Ella continued, stepping down from the chair, trying not to slip in her fishnets. 

“What do you mean?” Sookie asked. 

“Lorelai is Luke’s date,” Ella said. “A match made in heaven.”

Lorelai rolled her eyes. “We’re just going as friends.”

“It’s a good thing you’ve never been arrested. You’d never pass a polygraph,” Rory smiled, in on the teasing. 

“Wicked, wicked girls,” Lorelai scolded with a dramatic gasp. 

“Not quite the twins from  _ The Shining _ , but close,” Sookie chimed in, agreeing. 

“Twins indeed,” Lorelai said, straightening the corset, eyebrows raised. 

Normally, Ella barely filled out a bodice. But, with the constricting powers of the corset, she had cleavage nearly up to the collarbone. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t an interesting change from being nearly flat-chested, as she slowly got used to the pressure on her ribs. 

“Just call me Bianca,” Ella announced in a dramatic Elizabethan accent, making circular gestures with her hands. 

“Not Desdemona?” Rory asked.

Scrunching up her nose in thought, Ella shook her head. “No, definitely Bianca. I’d much rather slap Cassio than be murdered by Othello. Besides, I don’t think this dress is exactly Desdemona’s taste.”

. . .

The day bloomed hot and dry, the sun shining down from a cloudless sky. Ella rushed across town square from Patty’s to Luke’s. As she entered the air conditioning of the diner, she felt sweaty in her tight outfit, panting slightly. In the back of her mind, she worried her makeup would smudge beyond salvageability before the ceremony had even started. But soon, the cool evening would set in. And she kept her mind focused on the task at hand, trudging up the stairs to the apartment and knocking twice on the door. After a few moments, Jess came to greet her, dressed in all black. He blinked at her in surprise, then smirked. 

“Hello, flower girl,” he said. 

Scoffing dejectedly, she brushed past him into the apartment. But, as soon as she was in view of Luke’s side of the room, she turned back around with a look of disgust. TJ was shirtless, in nothing but some  _ very _ form-fitting tights. Jess chuckled at the scowl which formed on her face and the blush on her cheeks. 

“Jackass!” she scolded Jess playfully. “Why didn’t you warn me?”

“Didn’t exactly give me the chance, did you?” he asked, eyebrows raised as he made his way over to his duffel. 

“Excuses,” she shot back. 

“Alright, alright,” Luke piped up, exiting the bathroom and walking over to Ella in the kitchen. “What’s up, kid?”

Letting out a heavy sigh, she turned away from Jess and faced Luke, mouth set in a thin line. “I’ve been sent here to tell you that Liz’s dress ripped. But Lorelai is fixing it and everything is fine. She’ll just be a few minutes late. But no one’s getting left at the altar or anything.”

“What’d you say?” TJ chimed in, panicked, in his thick New Yorker accent.   
  


“Nothing, Liz is just running a little late getting dressed. Go put your outfit on, buddy,” Luke said, reassuring. 

Narrowing his eyes, TJ stared suspiciously at the three of them before finally giving a nod. He took the hanger which held his heavy Renaissance costume into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Ella was comforted by the fact that the next time she saw him he would more than likely be fully clothed. 

“Nice tie,” Ella said, feeling odd seeing Luke out of his usual uniform. The black suit looked stiff on him, but his burgundy tie was surprisingly fashionable.

“Thanks,” Luke replied, almost begrudging, almost anxious.

Jess walked back over to the two of them near the kitchen table. He had a pale, yellowish button-up over his black t-shirt, yet to be buttoned. “He’s nervous.”

“I am not,” Luke argued. 

“I bet Lorelai will think you look  _ great _ ,” Ella teased. 

Luke rolled his eyes dramatically. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Then, he went to deal with the shoes on his bed. The polish was practically a hundred years old, and its chunkiness wasn’t yielding the best results. 

As Jess finished buttoning up his shirt, his gaze roamed over Ella. She wore a lavender, cap-sleeve dress, chiffon with a hem which stopped just above her knees. Over it, a silvery vest corset. Her usually messy hair was curled in long, golden ringlets, and it was done half-up, half-down. A few loose strands hung around her freckled face. But even though her lips were shiny with clear gloss, her eye makeup was dark and smudged in a grungy style as usual.

“You look nice,” Jess said with sincerity, nearly winded, breathless from the butterflies which flew around in his stomach.

Smiling shyly, Ella’s flush deepened. “Thank you. Don’t look so bad yourself, Mariano.”

He nodded humbly.

But then, Ella furrowed her brows and she reached up to straighten the collar of his shirt. “You  _ have _ to remember to fold these right. How many times, Jess?”

Ignoring the electricity he felt at her touch, he looked down and saw the hefty black Doc Martens on her feet. He regained his confident smirk, smug. 

“No heels?” he asked as she took a step back from him, satisfied with his shirt. 

She mirrored his expression, conspiratory. “Never, when I can help it. Last time I wore them was at Sookie's wedding. One of the worst decisions of my life. And, hey, Liz said I could wear my own shoes.”

Jess snickered, picking his watch up from the kitchen table and fastening it around his wrist. “Wait to cheat the system.”

“Thank you very much,” she replied with a little bow. “See you out there?”

“Oh, can’t wait,” Jess drawled, feigning excitement. 

“Hey. Game face, Mariano,” Ella said, pointing a finger at him as she made for the front door. “I’ll save you a seat.”

. . .

With Liz’s dress finally fixed, Ella jogged over to the town square from Patty’s, hearing the strings and flute players biding their time, keeping the moderate crowd entertained. So many people were wearing costumes, flowers in their hair, and bells on their shoes. She would have rolled her eyes, but she was clutching at her middle and nearly doubled over when she finally made it to the end of the aisle, trying to catch her breath. Jess stood in waiting for his mother, and his eyes widened when he saw Ella panting. 

Bringing his hand to her arm as he crouched down, he furrowed his brows at her. “Woah, Stevens, are you okay?”

Nodding, Ella swallowed dryly and straightened up. “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine, Mariano. It’s just hot. And I’m only getting about half the air I normally do. I’m dizzy, that’s all.”

“You wanna sit down? I can get you some water?” he asked. Though she was usually pale, her face was almost never so ghostly. 

She shook her head just as the music kicked up, signaling her cue. Grabbing the basket of rose petals from the ground near the end of the aisle, she shot him one final smirk in an attempt at reassurance. “Really, I’m okay. And I’m on. Break a leg.”

“Right back at ya,” he said, a doubtful eyebrow raised. 

And, in a mortifying turn, Ella skipped down the aisle and added in a few twirls, tossing petals as she went. It wasn’t exactly dancing, which was good for the audience’s sake. They would otherwise have been doomed. But her cheeks flamed and her stomach squirmed with nerves, fearing a stumble. Lorelai flashed her an encouraging smile as she went, and soon enough Ella was taking her seat in the front row, one empty chair for Jess to her right. In all honesty, she was surprised she had actually pulled it off. When she’d signed on to be the flower girl, she’d understood the role as merely walking. She’d almost chickened out when Liz had shown her the moves the night before. But, somehow, she had survived. She didn’t believe in miracles, but it came pretty close. 

Then, Liz rode in at the back of the arrangement on a large chair, rolled by two men in pantaloons. Everyone rose. Jess took her by the arm, leading her down the way. Ella had to admit, Liz looked amazing in her wedding dress. And Jess, who’d had only a shy, stoic expression before, even managed a small smile as his mother kissed him on the cheek. Soon, she stepped next to TJ, and the crowd was seated again. Ella looked at Jess, as he came to her side, with a tiny smirk.

“You did well. Very firm gait,” she whispered.

Jess rolled his eyes, but his smile stayed. “Whatever, Stevens. We both know you were seconds away from breaking your nose.”

She didn’t reply, but instead licked the pad of her thumb and smudged Liz’s lipstick off his cheek. 

Jess grimaced. “Ugh, Eleanor spit.”

“Ah, sweet revenge,” she said, a wicked grin growing on her lips.

Once the officiant began playing some antiquated string instrument and singing a silly song about love, all bets were off. Ella could hear Luke and Lorelai fighting laughter behind her. She bit at her thumbnail to keep from giggling, but eventually had to hide her flushed face with one hand and grip Jess’s knee with the other for dear life. Even Jess had to bite down on his bottom lip to ward off an amused outburst.

. . .

Stars shone brightly from the dark sky, and Ella gazed up at them as the man sitting next to her and Jess droned on about his time in prison. Having had the opportunity to meet many of Liz and TJ’s acquaintances from the Renaissance fair over the course of the night, Ella was relatively sure she would not be donning her corset dress again any time soon. Though Liz had assured her she could keep it, since it was now fitted just right to her frame. Warm air blew past them in pleasant breezes, and it made Ella’s heart feel calm, soothed. Summer was coming. She couldn’t wait. Swims in the lake (without the current of an ocean), sitting out in the gazebo with Lane, drawing the floral arrangements which would adorn town. 

Eventually, the man with the tank top and shaved head rose from his seat, and left Ella and Jess alone at the table. Stray, empty plates peppered the gingham tablecloth. Deeply breathing in the clean air, Ella looked over at Jess in the glowy night, lit up by the extra twinkle lights around the makeshift dance floor which had been set up near the gazebo. Past Jess, she could see Luke and Lorelai talking and laughing amongst themselves at their table. A smirk crossed Ella’s face. She hoped it would stick this time, with Luke officially divorced and Lorelai having broken up with her rich, snotty boyfriend, Jason Stiles. Ella had never met him, of course. But from what Rory had told her, Jason had been all wrong for Lorelai. 

Clearing her throat, Ella faced Jess again and propped her head up on her palm, elbow on the table. “You okay?”

Jess, sitting hunched over his nearly empty plate of food, looked up at her and shrugged. He leaned back against the back of the folding chair he sat in. “Well, I’m not bleeding or anything. Are you still dizzy?”

“No, I think my vitality has been restored,” Ella said, sighing slightly.

“Well, I know the sunlight hurts you, Morticia.”

Snorting a laugh, Ella straightened up and her tone turned more serious. “Really, though. You’re okay with her getting married again?”

Chewing on his lip, Jess shrugged once again. “I’m okay. She’s gonna do what she’s gonna do. And this one is better than some of the others. Though that bar is pretty fucking low.”

She nodded. “Alright. You can tell me, y’know. It’s okay if you’re not okay.”

“I know,” he said shortly, though not unkindly.

“Good. Glad we sorted that out, then,” she said, smiling genuinely at him. 

He gave a small smile back. “Me too, Stevens.”

Suddenly, Kirk came over the loudspeaker soundsystem and announced Liz and TJ were about to have their first dance. The sweet guitar tune which played was not one Ella could instantly recognize, but she didn’t hate it. From the corner of her eye, she saw Luke and Lorelai over near the side of the dance floor. Jess watched Ella gaze out around the crowd, starlight glinting in her hazel eyes. He felt so content, and his mind wandered to the now-finished self help book sitting on the table near his teenage bed. But, before he could open his mouth to speak, Ella turned back to him. 

“This song isn’t half bad,” she said. “I almost expected a Gregorian chant, but I guess they’re not  _ quite  _ that committed to the theme.”

“I’ll be sure to mention that in the  _ Gazette _ review tomorrow,” Jess quipped. “I figured you’d think this was too happy.”

She shook her head slightly, pursing her lips. “Maybe the lyrics are happy, but it  _ sounds _ sad. The music feels...depressed. Fuck, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe I  _ do _ have heat stroke, after all.”

“I wouldn’t put it past you. And you tell  _ me _ I don’t drink enough water,” Jess chided, shaking his head.

Ella rolled her eyes. With a smirk, she pointed across the square towards Luke and Lorelai. “Look at those crazy kids.”

Jess looked at the two of them, Lorelai settling against Luke as they danced slowly together. He laughed under his breath. Maybe Luke was taking the book’s advice, too. It still shocked Jess that his uncle had been proactive enough to seek relationship guidance. Maybe Luke would no longer be the most dysfunctional person he knew. 

“Took them long enough,” Jess said knowingly.

Humming in agreement, Ella leaned back in her chair, shifting to get more comfortable. She absolutely couldn’t wait to take the dress off. “But, hey, Luke can waltz a hell of a lot better than I ever would’ve been able to.”

“Agreed,” Jess scoffed. “In those boots? You’d break all ten of my toes.”

“Hey, you managed to come away from the Distillers concert unscathed,” she said pointedly, eyebrows raised. 

“The exception that proves the rule.”

She snickered but didn’t retort, instead yawning against the back of her hand. Such a costume in the nighttime heat also seemed to be making her drowsy. After a moment, Jess swallowed down his pride. He remembered Lorelai’s words, Luke’s words, and the words in the book telling him he deserved love. Jess put a hesitant arm around her, and before she knew what she was doing, instinct taking over, she brought her head to his shoulder. And it was so familiar. Watching the townspeople of Stars Hollow, saying nothing but feeling everything. And, just for a minute, she quieted the thoughts which swirled around in her mind. She didn’t worry, she didn’t bite her nails, she didn’t clutch her necklace. She only let herself feel the swell of her heart. 

. . .

In the early hours of the morning, Ella was glad to have some silence in the house. Hep Alien was out at a gig, performing and celebrating the success of Mrs. Kim’s visit to finally reconcile with Lane. She’d come over to see her daughter’s new life during the wedding, when Ella was out. Though Zach and Brian had combed their hair and put on ironed shirts, Mrs. Kim already knew enough about Ella to never trust her. So, before she left for the wedding, Ella parked her car outside the diner and left no traces of her presence in the living room. As Ella was coming back through the front door, already unlacing her corset, the three band members were getting ready to rock, as Lane put it. With Dave out at college in California, they were still missing a guitar player, but they’d booked something at a random bar near New Haven. They were relying on their minimalist White Stripes covers for the time being. Lane had given Ella an excited squeal and a big hug before leaving, offering her friend a brief rundown of the evening. Mrs. Kim still wasn’t overjoyed, but she had at least done a walkthrough of the house. 

Finally able to breathe again, Ella had cracked open nearly every window of the house to let the cool breeze in. Her hair was damp and loose from a shower. She was dressed in an old Pixies t-shirt and some plaid pajama bottoms, more comfortable than she’d been all day. It had been taxing, but more fun than she thought it would be.

And Jess. So different but so easy. A quick goodbye. Apparently, though, he had just gotten a cellphone. He had given her his number, after a fair amount of her teasing. She’d promised to take advantage of Luke’s house phone during her breaks. As hard as it was to watch him disappear into the dark diner, parting ways as she walked back to Lane’s and he went to pack up his stuff, at least she knew it wouldn’t be the last time they spoke. She could’ve sworn, as they sat for nearly an hour with her head on his shoulder, she had been transported back in time. Somehow, she had forgotten just how safe Jess could make her feel. How right. But with it brought confusion.

He lived miles away, he left without a word, didn’t speak to her for over a month. If she hadn’t grabbed the phone from Luke, would he have ever tried to get in touch with her at all? No matter how much she wanted to be with him, she couldn’t forget what had happened, how it felt. Despite what Lorelai and Rory may have thought, calling to check in on her best friend every once in a while was different than forgiving the past. 

Snuggled beneath a thin throw blanket, Ella doodled inside a copy of  _ The Waves _ . She had tried to focus on the words for only a few minutes before giving up entirely. Her thoughts were too loud; she couldn’t quiet them down enough for fiction, even modernist. Instead, she drew a Renaissance scene, a grim reaper sneaking up on a gaggle of beautiful, corseted women. 

She furrowed her brows when a knock sounded on the door. It was Lane’s house, and she hadn’t mentioned expecting anyone. Nonetheless, Ella tossed her book and blanket aside, crossing her arms over her braless chest defensively. But, she found only Jess on the doorstep. He had donned his leather jacket and stood with his hands shoved in his pockets. His expression was largely unreadable, but she almost thought she saw a shine in his brown eyes. 

“Hey, Mariano,” she greeted him, smiling. “Is something wrong? Is it that rust bucket again? If you need a place to crash while Gypsy’s fixing it, I’m sure Lane would be okay if we shared the couch, or the floor maybe-”

“Can I come in?” he asked suddenly, shifting his weight from foot to foot. 

Ella nodded, face falling at his anxious tone. She stepped aside for him to pass. “Sure. Everyone else is at a gig near Yale. Just Virginia Woolf and I tonight.”

A half-hearted smirk crossed his face as she shut the door and went back to the couch. She gestured for him to sit in the armchair across from her. It was a wonder how the band managed to fit any furniture in the living room at all with the drums and other gear set up on the wall near the front door. 

“What’s wrong, Jess? Did something happen?” she asked gently, tilting her head at him. 

He swallowed harshly, running a hand over his mouth. “I need to talk to you.”

She nodded. “Okay. Well, here I am.”

Breathing a heavy sigh, he took a long pause, then finally locked eyes with her. “Come with me.”

“What?” she asked, chuckling slightly in disbelief. Was he joking?

“To New York. We could work, live together, be together. God knows they would love your art up there. You could sell it on the street if you needed to, and I know people would buy it. I love you, Elle. I love you so much and I wanna be with you.” He gestured passionately and spoke with such conviction that Ella was almost rendered speechless with shock. 

Gathering her thoughts, she began to shake her head slowly. “You don’t love me, Jess.”

“Of course I do!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been in love with you for two years!”

She gave him a doubtful glance.

“Since that day in the gazebo! I’ve thought about it over and over! When you took my hand, and you showed me the hydrangeas through the hole in the roof, and you told me you didn’t care whether I went to college! And you took off your heels to walk home, right before you left for New Britain. And I’ve loved you every second of every day since!”

“Oh really?” she asked, voice growing tense. “You loved me when you left without saying anything? You loved me when I went a month without knowing whether you were alive or dead? You loved me then?”

Jess bowed his head slightly and sighed again. “Yes. I loved you so much then. And I love you now. I’m sorry, Elle. Okay? I know you couldn’t count on me then, but you can now! I’m here! I’m right here!”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella only kept shaking her head. “Jess, you can’t do this to me.  _ I _ can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. You can do anything. You’ve always been able to do anything! And I know you want this, too! I know you love me!” he continued, tone pleading now. 

Tears sprang up and spilled over in Ella’s eyes before she could stop them, and she wiped angrily at her cheeks. “Please stop.”

“Look, I know you’re scared-”

“No, Jess, you don’t know!” she interrupted, voice raised to a yell. “You don’t know! You were gone. Overnight. Just gone. And you didn’t call for a month! I didn’t know where you were! You left! Just like everyone! Just like my fucking mom! And my older brother! And you broke my heart!”

For a moment, the air stood stagnant and charged between them. Crickets and cicadas hummed outside. Stray yells, noises from the wedding party, still sounded in the distance. Jess sniffled and blinked back tears. Ella wiped furiously at her cheeks. Soon, she had her elbows on her knees and was hiding her face in her hands. 

“Eleanor, please, I’m so sorry! I was so lost! Luke kicked me out and I didn’t know what to do! And I did leave you. But not forever!”

Ella gave a muffled, bitter chuckle.

“I wanna be with you! For the rest of my life! But not here. Not in this place. Not in Stars Hollow! We can start new!” he said, voice strained with emotion. 

Raising her head to face him again, Ella clutched at her necklace. “I can’t leave, Jess. My little brother’s still here, I’m starting summer classes in a week, I-”

“It’s not about him. It’s not about them. It’s about  _ you _ and  _ me _ . It’s about what we want! You already left your place! Everything you own is in your backseat! You’re ready! Let’s go!”

“No!”

“I love you, Elle. I  _ know _ you love me too! You say you don’t believe in it, but I know it’s not true! You love me and we love each other and we’re supposed to be together! Let’s go!”

Still, she shook her head vehemently. 

“No, Jess!” she shouted, louder than she expected to. She had stopped trying to hide her crying. Her tone was cracked. “No! You don’t get to come here and try to save me! I don’t need any saving! We said no cop outs! We said we were gonna try! And you left without trying! I’m not falling for it again!”

Jess, too, had tears streaming down his cheeks. “Eleanor, I can fix it. I promise, I-”

“ _ Don’t _ Eleanor me, Jess! It’s too late! You promised before and you  _ left _ me! Fuck and run! And I should’ve known!” she exclaimed hotly. She raked her hands through her hair, pausing, but it seemed Jess might have nothing more to say. “I think you should go.”

His jaw tensed, and a crestfallen look appeared on his face. “Eleanor, you know we love each other. Please... _ please _ just come with me.”

Breathing a broken sigh, Ella averted her gaze from him, dejected. Her heart twisted painfully. She almost couldn’t take it. She stared at her hands, wringing them together in her lap. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Jess. Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

Mouth agape, Jess stared at her in the lamplight. She loved him. He loved her. They both knew it. But her voice, with no affection for him in it. Nothing at all but sorrow. And it clicked in his mind. He would never have her again. He’d done exactly what he’d promised not to do; and he would forever pay the price. She could hold a grudge like it was her job, Luke had said. Patience, Lorelai had said. He hadn’t listened. Maybe he deserved love, as the book said, but not from her. As he walked out without another word, he didn’t slam the door. He shut it gently behind him. And a cold stone of grief sat heavy in Ella’s stomach. She sat on the couch, weeping, until the birds chirped and the sun rose.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated, especially on a hefty chapter like this one!


	25. James Dean and Daria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella receives a book in the mail and attends an open house.

_**two years later** _

A Ramones song was stuck in her head, and Ella hummed along with its tune as she twirled around the diner. Her hair, freshly cut, was back in a black bandana. She blew her wispy curtain bangs away from the sides of her forehead as she served up lunch. Lane was on shift, and they bounced around together in sync. Working with her made everything a little sunnier. Lorelai had always said Ella and Lane were night and day, respectively. The thought of it made Ella smile as she joined her friend behind the counter again. Recently, Lane had been experimenting with contacts, and it was still jarring to see her without her trademark glasses. 

They made a dynamic duo, as Luke was off to fix random bits and bobs at the Inn. With he and Lorelai engaged, he was over there doing repairs for free nearly half the time. During which time, especially in the afternoons, Ella was left to look after Luke’s daughter, April. To say she was shocked when Luke told her he had a twelve-year-old kid that some woman from his past had never told him about would’ve been an understatement. But soon, April was fitting into the groove of town. Ella was always glad to do homework with her (not that the brainiac ever needed _help_ per se) or listen to the girl’s long-winded monologues about obscure scientific principles. Sometimes, Ella hardly believed Luke and April were related. The girl could talk for days without taking a breath if she had the chance. Watching April concentrate over her textbooks and scribble essays during the early dinner rush sometimes made Ella’s heart do a little, nostalgic twist. She was no longer the girl doing calculus at the corner table. To everything there was a season. 

“‘I Wanna Be Sedated’?” Lane asked, breaking Ella out of her reverie. 

Ella turned to Lane with a small smirk, arms crossing over her chest. Breathing out a sigh, she gave a nod. Things were finally slowing down, almost everyone with a plate in front of them. She had taken over the floor for the day. Lane’s wedding to Zach was only weeks away, and Lane was stressed enough as it was. Ella figured having Lane on register would at least be a decent method to avoid her passing out. 

Lane narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at her friend. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”

Shrugging, Ella turned to make a pot of coffee. “I don’t know. I’m a college graduate. Besides, is Ramones really good mood music?”

Lane scoffed. “For you? Definitely.”

“Just happy to have all this education, maybe,” Ella said. 

Though it had been a whole five days since her graduation, she was still basking in the glow of it. She couldn’t believe she had managed to get through school in three years instead of four. It meant the upcoming summer would be her first real break from school since the summer after high school. During her last finals, she had been nearly ready to tear her hair out. Suffice it to say, it was time to stop studying for at least a little while.

“So, I guess we’ll be hearing about this _summa cum laude_ thing forever, huh?” Lane teased.

Ella’s smile grew wider. “Forever is a strong word. ‘The foreseeable future’ would be more accurate.”

Lane rolled her eyes with a chuckle.

“And what’s got _you_ all grumpy today? That’s my job. Did a _Freaky Friday_ situation happen without my knowledge?” Ella asked. 

Sighing heavily, Lane went back over to the register, seeing some customers finishing up their meals. “I told you my mom wants me to wear her wedding dress, right?”

Ella nodded. 

“Well, she finally showed it to me. And it has _pants_!”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella swallowed down the laugh which threatened to leave her lips. 

“I gave it to Lorelai. Hopefully something along the lines of _salvageable_ will come of it,” Lane grumbled, adjusting her apron anxiously.

“Hey, Lorelai made that renaissance dress I wore to Liz’s wedding wearable. I’m sure she’ll work her magic,” Ella said, turning to see Luke return as the bell over the door jingled. 

“We’ll see,” Lane said, sighing again as a young couple came up to the register, ready to pay for their patty melts. 

As Luke approached, Ella saw he had the mail in his hands. He looked almost haggard, with dark circles under his eyes. She knew he and Lorelai had been having some problems, but didn’t know the details. It wouldn’t be surprising if the new daughter or the prolonged engagement had something to do with it, though. Since she and Rory had fallen out of touch, Ella saw Lorelai less and less. And it wasn’t like Luke was a chatterbox.

“Something came for you,” Luke said shortly, handing Ella a puffy orange envelope. 

As soon as she took it, she could tell it was a book. Confusion painted her features; it wasn’t often she got mail addressed to Luke’s. She’d been living at Lane’s for almost two years. Furrowing her brows, she looked in the upper right corner and her face immediately fell when she saw the familiar, spiky handwriting. Clearing her throat, she plastered on a complacent expression.

“I’m gonna take a fifteen, okay?” she said, clutching the package tightly in her hands. 

Luke nodded. “You alright?”

Ella smiled thinly. “Yeah. Just gotta take the smell of the stock room in as much as I possibly can. I’ve only got it until the end of July.”

Rolling his eyes, Luke shook his head. “I’m counting the seconds.”

“Hey, I could quit right now! Then where would you be?!” she exclaimed dramatically, a bit which never seemed to get old.

Luke grunted doubtfully. “Don’t tease.”

Smirking slightly, she finally turned on her heel and went back into the stock room. It was dim, piled high with boxes and cans. But there was the comforting smell of dust and pine, making her feel just a touch less queasy. Sitting on the lone table in the middle on the shelves, her legs dangling over the sides with boots heavy on her feet, Ella stared down at Jess’s writing for a moment. It only made sense he would send her something at the diner. He probably had no idea where she lived, if she was still even in Stars Hollow. 

Her mind wandered to their last conversation, her night up on the plaid couch, crying. When Jess had called to tell Luke he was back in New York, Luke said Jess had told him to say hello to her. She’d told him to say hello back, a half-hearted message. And she was glad to know his trip had been safe. Glad he had apparently mended fences with Luke. But when she thought of actually speaking to him, hearing his voice, it made her feel sick with nerves. All she could see was his heartbroken expression when she had told him she wouldn’t come with him. Hear his pleading. Many times, she had pulled out the small slip of paper with his cell number written on it, had thought about reaching out. But, it simply hurt too much. 

And she would have no idea where to begin. He had apologized. And she had rejected him. She didn’t regret it, didn’t feel bad about what she had said or done. But she knew there would be a shift between them. All the words they spoke would have a whispered ‘what if’ underneath. It seemed like too much to put him through. Jess probably wouldn’t like to hear her voice either, she thought. As angry as she had been before, she just couldn’t bear to hurt him anymore. It was more trouble than it was worth. So, each time Luke spoke with Jess, they exchanged fleeting greetings through him. It was impersonal, cold, but, they always knew the other was alive. The deal still stood, even after everything.

Running her finger along the address on the package, written in black permanent marker, Ella felt a storm of emotion brewing within her. Time and distance had been kind; when she thought of him, she didn’t think betrayal, she didn’t think resentment. Somehow, their final argument had cleansed her of those feelings. He had come back. She had never expected it. But, at least, he had come back for her, even if she didn’t exactly want it. Instead of anger, there was only sadness, for months. She had walked around with an aura of gloom. But then, life had gotten busier, and it faded.

Instead, as the pad of her finger curved over his name again and again, she thought of her books, filled with their writing to each other. She thought of his smirk, ever-present when she was around. And his brown eyes, guarded but so often kind. And his fears, shared only with her. And, above all, she thought of him telling her he loved her. With tears running down his cheeks, anxious hands raking through his hair. 

Love. That word she had always scoffed at. While she still wasn’t one to utter it lightly, she had slowly come around. As the world moved around her, and she was finally away from her childhood home, she began to see it. Luke and Lorelai, mostly. She almost felt silly, having watched a love story unfold before her eyes in the diner for years and years. Perhaps as a teen, she had been too headstrong. Perhaps she had been unable to see how her own fears had stopped her from living the way she wanted to, a pattern she had been able to see so clearly in Lane and Jess. Without the constant reminder of her parents’ doomed union, she felt better each day. More open.

But still, she had no idea how to feel about Jess. Surely, he had moved on. She didn’t know where he was, what he was doing. Luke had only told her he was doing well. And she had never asked for details. No use in ripping open old wounds. But it seemed the ball wasn’t entirely in her court. Jess had made a move. Again. Biting at the inside of her cheek, she heaved a big sigh and ripped open the side of the package. Inside it, she found a book, as she expected. 

But her breath caught as she ran her eyes over the black-and-white cover: _The Subsect_ by Jess Mariano. Her heart skipped a beat in her chest and a grin came over her lips before she could stop it. She knew it was only a matter of time. He was a writer. He always had been. As she flipped open the inside cover, a slip of heavy, purple paper fell out. A crease formed between her brows as she took the paper in one hand, eyes gravitating to the words scribbled in pen on the novel’s second page. 

Before she could begin the handwritten message, she looked to the dedication. A lump formed in her throat. _For Eleanor_ , it read simply. Her hazel eyes shone with glassy tears, and the surreality of the moment hit her like a ton of bricks. Swallowing down the sob which threatened to escape, she turned to the inscription before she could get caught up in her emotions.

_I wasn’t sure how to tell you about this. But I wanted to let you know somehow, considering it wouldn’t have happened without you. And writing in a book seemed like the best way, since it’s worked for us in the past. I included an invite to the Open House thing we’re having at Truncheon, the place which was stupid enough to publish this. You don’t have to come, and I don’t expect you to. But, in case you_ _did_ _want to come see what I couldn’t have done without you, you’re more than welcome._

_-Jess_

Chewing on her thumbnail, Ella picked up the purple invite and ran her eyes over the address. Philadelphia. She smirked at the coincidence. She could see him there. Always a city boy. And, though nerves coursed through her veins and butterflies flew around in her stomach, she knew immediately that she would soon be seeing the liberty bell. 

. . .

Smoothing her hands over her dress, Ella took in a deep breath. Her battered blue station wagon was parked behind her on the street, and for a split second, she thought about running back to it. Driving all the way back up to Connecticut in a continuous three-hour stretch. But she knew there would be at least a few familiar faces inside Truncheon Books. Luke had offered to be a chaperone for some road trip with April’s school, and they, of course, were also invited to the open house. Initially, Luke had been wary of them both being away from the diner, but Ella assured him Lane and Caesar could handle it. And, of course, he would have to learn to deal without her by the end of the July. She and Lane would be even when Ella took all the shifts for the week of her and Zach’s honeymoon. Yes, Ella’s final week as a waitress at Luke’s was bound to be grueling. 

Biting down on the inside of her cheek, Ella opened the door and entered the publishing house before she could talk herself out of it. The place was crowded, lots of people mingling at a table near the entrance and next to the coat rack. The green walls were lined with art, and the room was filled with warm, richly-toned wood. She hung her bag as her heart sat heavy in her chest. She hadn’t realized just how anxious walking into Jess’s new world was going to make her. A small smile formed on her face, though, as she scanned the crowd for Luke and April. When she didn’t instantly find them, she crossed her arms and walked toward the collection of photographs on a wall near the door. They showed visions of the city: an old newspaper stand, a rusty bike, a group of angry teenagers sat around a statue of Thomas Jefferson. She’d never been good with technology, including cameras, and she envied the photographer who could capture images like these.

Across the room, Jess spotted her. Her blonde waves fell down her back, just past her shoulder blades, shorter than he’d ever seen her hair. There was a tattoo on the back of one of her calves, and one on the inside of her left forearm. She was too far away though, and he couldn’t quite make out what they were. As expected, she was dressed only in blacks and greys, her dress checkered with the two colors. And, as expected, her all-black oxfords had no heel. Before he could stop it, a grin crossed his face, and his hand tightened around the half-empty beer bottle he was nursing. Never had he actually thought she would show up. But there she was. Matthew, who stood next to him on the stairs, instantly noticed his friend’s change in expression. He followed Jess’s eyes, and it dawned on him. Jess didn’t talk about the woman he’d dedicated _The Subsect_ to a lot. But the blonde standing before the photography section fit the description Jess had spewed drunkenly on his last birthday almost perfectly. 

Matthew raised knowing brows. “Is that her?”

“What?” Jess asked, blinking slightly as he looked away from her and turned back to the co-owner of his business. 

Scoffing out a chuckle, Matthew shook his head. “That’s the girl, isn’t it? The one you wrote the book for.”

Breathing a big sigh, Jess took another sip of his drink and nodded slowly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Oh, yeah,” Matthew laughed, clapping Jess on the shoulder. “Now’s your chance.”

Jess snorted a bitter laugh, looking away from his friend and down at his shoes. “There’s no chance.”

Before Matthew could say anything more, Jess descended the final two stairs. Matthew was still chuckling behind him. No matter how much Chris and Matthew drove him up the wall sometimes, he would always be grateful. They’d published his book. They’d welcomed him into the company before it even existed, into the apartment upstairs. They’d become his family without him even noticing it. And he knew no matter how torn up he would be after speaking with Ella (and he knew he would be, at least a little), they’d get him through it. As they had gotten him through the heartbreak the first time, when he’d shown up on the doorstep of a company he’d heard about through some friends in New York, a company which didn’t even have a name, just some printing equipment. Tossing the empty beer in the recycle near the front refreshment table, Jess took another breath in. He could thank her for everything she’d done, then watch her leave without completely crumbling. Maybe if he was confident enough in himself, Jess thought, it would be so. 

Walking up next to her, Jess bit down on his bottom lip and shoved his hands in the pockets of his blazer. His palms were sweaty. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Jess said, eyes on the photographs. Immediately, he regretted his words. How cliché could he possibly sound? Usually, the nerves didn’t affect his mouth. But not around Ella. 

Though she startled on the inside, Ella didn’t visibly jump. Instead, she cracked a small smile. “And yet, here I am.”

“Didn’t expect to see you.”

“Well,” she said, shrugging, “I’m full of surprises.”

“Stealing my line, huh, Stevens?” he asked. 

Still, they hadn’t turned to face each other. 

“Funny, I didn’t know you had the trademark,” she quipped. 

“Touché,” he said, feigning disappointment. 

Smile growing, Ella finally turned to him. “Never thought I’d see Jess Mariano in a _suit jacket_.”

His hair was cut differently, parted and combed. Not as unkempt as it had once been. He had dark, shadowy stubble on his cheeks. Just as any brooding writer would. Underneath his black jacket, he wore a t-shirt with a black-and-white photo of a little girl smoking a cigarette on a beach. Ella thought she recognized it from one of her art classes, but couldn’t quite place it. 

Chuckling under his breath, Jess built up his courage and faced her. “Yeah, well, I guess corporate America finally got to me.”

“I don’t know. I think this place feels pretty counterculture,” she said, eyes flicking around the room again. “Might as well be in the Haight-Ashbury.”

“Coming from you, I feel like that’s meant to be an insult,” he said.

“Trust me, it’s not,” Ella replied, with more sincerity than he was prepared for. Before he could interject with some deflection, she continued on. “I mean...this place. It really feels like you. And the book. It was...fuck, Jess, you’re really too smart for your own good.”

He shook his head, blushing and refusing to meet her gaze. Ella Stevens was still the only person who made him blush nearly every time he spoke to her. “I don’t know. If I could do it again, everything would be different.”

Ella scoffed. “C’mon, Mariano, you and I both know how amazing it is.”

“Whatever you say, Stevens,” he said shyly.

“I’ll keep complimenting you until you accept that you’re a kickass author, who I can definitely tell has a beatnik fetish,” she warned, mock severity crossing her features. 

Jess rolled his eyes. “Fine. Thank you, Eleanor.”

“You’re so very welcome,” she replied, eyes alight with a teasing, mischievous glint. But, underneath, Jess could tell how genuine she really was. It made his heart ache for her. 

After a moment of awkward pause, charged air, Jess pointed a thumb over his shoulder to the table with the refreshments. “You want a beer?”

Ella shook her head. “No thanks. I don’t really drink.”

“Hm,” Jess hummed, eyes narrowing just a touch. The way she’d said it, he could tell there was more. He knew why she didn’t drink. He remembered her father smelling of liquor on Thanksgiving day. And he remembered how upset she’d been the morning after she stole her father’s tequila. Nostalgia washed over him in a wave, and he was relieved when she took the initiative and spoke again. 

“And,” she said, gaining a lighter tone once again, “I’m not of legal age yet, anyway.”

“Oh, well, I _certainly_ couldn’t break the law,” Jess said with a furrowed brow. He was always forgetting he was ten months her senior. She had always seemed older. 

“Right,” she said, nodding along, “you wouldn’t dream of it.”

Again, an uncomfortable pause began. It made Ella want to grimace. Things had never been so awkward with the two of them, not even when they’d first met. It had always been easy, without the world complicating things for them. Her eyes did another quick sweep of the room.

“Have you seen Luke and April?” she asked.

Jess nodded. “Yeah, you just missed them. They had to get back to the field trip, I think.”

Ella nodded back in acknowledgement, though she immediately felt her heartbeat quicken. The idea of Luke and April being there as a kind of safety net was half the reason she’d been brave enough to come. But, she’d had a morning shift at the diner, and the traffic had made it so she had shown up only twenty minutes before the end of the open house. All of a sudden, she felt silly for thinking they would still be there. Silly for showing up at all. In the note, he’d said she wasn’t obligated at all. Why had she come again? At the moment, the panicked thoughts were too loud for her to focus on anything else. 

“But Luke was here long enough to complain about all the abstract paintings and the spoken word performances,” Jess continued, noticing Ella try to grab for a necklace she wasn’t wearing, and instead fiddle with a lock of her hair. In all the time he had known her, he had never once seen her without the key hanging from her neck. Not even in bed. But he knew better than to ask about it. 

Ella’s smile returned, though it was not altogether convincing. “Sounds like him. I think one of the few areas of agreement between the two of you is a natural aversion to poetry.”

Jess shrugged. “I don’t know. I might finally be coming around.” Then, he saw Chris approaching, and felt himself relax. Someone else to act as a buffer. He wasn’t quite ready for the words creeping up his throat, begging to get out. “But, my friend Chris is the real poetry guy. He hires all the acts.”

He gestured for Chris to come over. Ella raised her eyebrows at the man, tall and blonde and grinning widely. A hyper energy practically radiated off of him. She could tell why he was the one on the business end of things. 

“Chris, this is Eleanor,” Jess said. “She’s an old friend.”

“Hey.” She extended her hand. “You can call me Ella.”

Somehow, Chris’s smile grew larger as they shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she replied amiably, as their hands broke from each other.

“You have a very firm handshake,” Chris commented, towering over her. Jess was tall, but this guy made Ella feel like a Polly Pocket figurine. 

She snorted a chuckle. “Um, thanks. Guess those steroids are really paying off.”

Jess smirked. Sometimes, he thought Chris was to him as Lane was to Ella. Chris laughed, tickled at her wicked humor, as he called it, but soon his expression grew earnest again.

“Well, it’s good to finally put a face on the famous Eleanor,” Chris said. 

“I’m famous?” Ella asked, titing a teasing nod at Jess, who blushed but didn’t have time to explain before Chris cut in again.

“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know the magazine interview went alright. I’m gonna go catch up with the beat poet and make sure everything’s squared away,” Chris told Jess. 

Nodding, Jess glared slightly at his friend, unable to hide his irritation. Chris said once again how nice it was to meet Ella before disappearing back into the central swarm of people, though it was slowly dissipating. The afternoon light outside was slowly morphing from bright to dusky. Evening would soon fall. 

Smirking, Ella faced Jess again. He made a pointed effort to avoid her gaze, panic rising up in his throat. 

“What is it, Stevens?” he asked, sighing slightly.

She cleared her throat, biting on her bottom lip for a moment. “Nothing. Just didn’t realize I was famous around here.”

He rolled his eyes, embarrassed. “Well, I _did_ dedicate my book to you.”

For whatever reason, the comment caught her off-guard. They both knew he had dedicated it to her. But, she couldn’t help but think about how before, Jess would have never been able to admit such a gesture out loud. Hell, at seventeen Jess couldn’t even admit fixing the toaster in the diner for Luke. 

“Yeah,” she said slowly, searching for a witty remark but coming up empty. “Yeah, you did, James Dean.”

He faltered for just a moment. She had come, she had called him James Dean. It was confusing, but nonetheless, wonderful. Still, he knew there was no use in getting his hopes up. He would never have her again, he reminded himself. Furrowing her brows, Ella watched his expression fade from a smirk to a small, sad smile. Jess ran a hand over his mouth and tossed an anxious glance over his shoulder before taking a big breath in and blowing it out through his nose. 

“Are you nervous?” she asked suddenly, face softening.

Jess nodded self-consciously.

“You don’t have to be, Jess. It’s just me,” she shrugged, gesturing down at herself humbly.

Regaining a touch of composure, Jess raised his eyebrows. “I don’t know. You’ve got bangs and tattoos. New shoes. Doesn’t look quite like my Daria.”

Ella broke into a full grin, and a warmth swelled in her chest like she hadn’t felt in such a long time. Something shifted within her. For a moment, she worried her eyes would fill with tears. But, instead, she only uttered a breathy chuckle. “Don’t worry. I think I’ll always be your Daria.”

Swallowing thickly, Jess echoed her laugh. Then, he looked over his shoulder again, only partly because he wanted to hide his face. He couldn’t risk her seeing hope flash across his expression. “Can I show you something?”

“Sure,” she said, nodding. 

Gently, he grabbed her hand and led her through the crowd of young creatives. The room smelled like weathered books and hot ink. An eclectic variety of bohemian rugs covered the blue tile floor. Maybe it was a little more colorful than she would have initially guessed, but Jess truly looked like he belonged there. People waved and nodded greetings at him as they passed, Jess reciprocating shyly each time. It was refreshing. She had never seen him so in his element before. Something about the way he held himself, confident and relaxed. His hand was warm and familiar. 

Eventually, they made it to the far wall, near the staircase and next to the small stage area. A few people sat around on the cushions and beanbags, drinking their beers and writing in small moleskine notebooks. She wanted to snort and roll her eyes at them, but she was simply too happy. The anxiety which had been so nauseating as she hesitated at the door was almost completely forgotten. Because Jess was excited to see her. He had taken her hand. When he disentangled their fingers, he gestured to the wall, with a collection of small frames. 

As her eyes roamed over the framed sketches, it took her only a moment to recognize them. They were hers. Nine pictures, all those she’d given to Jess over the years. Jess’s car with skeletons in the seats, a screaming woman, a garden filled with snakes. Others she’d handed him in shining moments, lying together in bed, on shift at the diner, sitting in the gazebo with her head on his shoulder. And, in the center, the Hudson River. Drawn on Mother’s Day four years earlier, as they sat together on a dirty hill and escaped reality for just one day.

Before she could hold them back, tears stung her hazel eyes. Beside the arrangement of drawings, she saw a small, printed index card stuck to the wall.

_Eleanor Stevens_

_Nine Untitled Sketches_

_Not For Sale_

She breathed out a flabbergasted scoff, the ghost of a smile on her lips when she turned back to Jess. He smirked fondly at the look of pleasant surprise on her face. For a fleeting moment, she looked younger. Innocent in a way she so rarely was, shocked and alive. He missed that look, but hardly realized until he saw it again. 

“Jess, I…” she said breathlessly, shaking her head in disbelief and facing the sketches again. Eventually, she gathered herself and found her words. “I had no idea you saved these.”

“Of course I did,” he said, shrugging as though it were obvious. “I knew they’d be worth millions someday.”

She snorted a laugh. “Not likely.”

“I’m serious, Stevens. People have been asking about these. But I didn’t want to set a price on them or anything, since I didn’t have your input,” Jess explained, eyes on her as she stared at her own past work. 

Ella felt as though she might explode, almost too moved to bear. She sniffed and blinked harshly, unwilling to let the tears actually spill over, especially in public. Her hands were shaking at her sides, and she began wringing them together in front of her. 

A few astonished giggles escaped her, and she shook her head a final time before she looked back at Jess. He had grown up, and so had she. But as she locked eyes with him, she felt seventeen again, could practically hear the Interpol song playing in her head. The urge to kiss him came over her, made her skin feel tingly and electric. She swallowed harshly, letting the thoughts fade in her mind. As if he had waited all this time for her. He would surely have a girlfriend. Someone who actually liked Hemingway, who could dance, who didn’t have a sailor’s mouth and a broken family. 

“I don’t know what to say.” She fought the urge to bite at her nails. 

Jess laughed quietly. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

She rolled her eyes at his teasing half-heartedly.

“You don’t have to say anything. _I_ was the one who wanted to say thank you. For everything. I couldn’t have done any of this if I hadn’t met you,” he told her. Jess surprised even himself by being able to maintain eye contact with her. 

“You definitely could have,” Ella said resolutely.

He smirked. “No use in arguing with you, I know. So we can agree to disagree but…”

Pausing, Jess sighed and ran a hand over his mouth again. He glanced behind him, and could see Chris and Matthew pretending they hadn’t been staring at the exchange as they bid people goodbye. There were only a few others left milling around. Jess still almost couldn’t believe Ella was standing right in front of him. For two years, he’d imagined what he would say. But, as usual, the sight of her was staggering. Her hazel gaze pierced his scarred heart and immediately all the scripts he’d written disappeared from his head. 

“Look, do you...we’re going out for drinks after. Me and Chris and Matthew, the other guy we own this place with. I know drinking isn’t your thing, though I wasn’t planning on getting wasted anyway, and I don’t know when you have to go back but...do you wanna come? We can catch up?” he asked, hesitant. 

Her small smile spread to a grin, and the dimple shone in her freckled cheek. “Sure, Mariano. I’d love to.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	26. Lily Briscoe, Remember?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a visit to a local bar, Ella catches up with Jess and spends a night in Philadelphia.

Twirling her cool water glass around and around on the grimy table, Ella smiled softly when a Strokes song came over the speakers. The bar was some hole-in-the-wall dive a few blocks down from the publishing house, still adorned with St. Patrick’s Day decorations although it was halfway through May. But Ella didn’t mind it. There weren’t rowdy swarms of college students or bachelorette parties. Instead, people in their late twenties sat around in black, square-framed glasses talking in buzzing tones. They had locally-made beer and a small, empty stage with just a stool, where independent artists played on the weekends. The air was salty with fries and early summer excitement. Matthew made conversation with her as Chris and Jess went up to order the drinks. Leaning back against the ripped vinyl booth, Ella listened intently as Matthew, sat across from her in a creaky wooden chair, told her about he and Chris meeting in high school. 

“...so, we weren’t in the AV club or anything, but we definitely weren’t on the football team either-”

Chris led the way back to the table with a tray of beers and a hoot of satisfaction, Jess trailing behind his friend and rolling his eyes. 

Stopping mid-sentence, Matthew turned to Chris and swiped a drink. Chris sat down beside him and was almost instantly chattering away. Matthew seemed kind, quiet, subdued. A good balance to Chris’s chaotic enthusiasm. Jess slid into the booth beside Ella, shrugging off his suit jacket, flushed in the stuffy air. Their upper arms touched, making her stomach do a flip. Even though it had been years since he lived at Luke’s, Jess still somehow had an aroma of pine. 

“So,” Chris began, turning to Ella with a pointed look and a grin, “what do you do, Ella?”

“Oh, um, I’m a waitress.” 

“And an artist,” Jess chimed in, taking a sip from his bottle. 

Ella rolled her eyes and then shot him a teasing glare. “Not professionally. But I just graduated from Southern Connecticut State last week. Hopefully I won’t be filling sandwich orders my whole life.”

“You graduated already, Doogie?” Jess asked with a pleasant, surprised chuckle. 

She shrugged. “Wasn’t too big a deal. I took summer classes and stuff.”

“What’s your major?” Matthew asked.

“Studio art,” she said. “Minor in history, though.”

Jess raised his brows, but said nothing. Apparently she hadn’t gone through only outward changes. He could smell her lavender perfume as he sipped on his cheap, watery beer. It was odd to see her in Keeley’s, a bar he’d frequented since arriving in Philadelphia. The feeling was not quite deja-vu, but his worlds were certainly colliding. In the back of his mind, he wondered where her necklace was, wondered where she was living. It was easy to feel like he knew her, maybe better than anyone, but they hadn’t spoken in so long. She could be married, for all he knew. Scanning her thin hands, he found no engagement or wedding rings. But an uneasiness still sat right under his skin, eager to be resolved. 

Crossing his arms, elbows on the table, Chris leaned closer into the conversation. “That’s so cool! Do you have anything lined up? Seems like you should, considering how many people tried to buy your sketches today.”

She scoffed, continuing to turn her glass anxiously. A blush warmed her cheeks, and a nervous smile tugged at her lips as she averted her eyes down to the table. “Sort of. Grad school is where I’m headed now.”

“Really?” Jess chimed in. “Where?”

Clearing her throat, Ella raked a hand through her hair. Though Jess tilted his head at her, she refused to meet his gaze. “It’s funny, actually. I’ve still got some things to work out...but UPenn.”

“No way! That’s right down the road from us!” Chris exclaimed. 

Ella’s smile widened marginally, and excitement rose in her chest. “Yeah, it’s weird. I had a few I was choosing between, and Penn reached out and...I only confirmed a couple weeks ago. A few days before I got your invitation in the mail. Since I was coming down here anyway, I scheduled my interview with the Dean for tomorrow.”

“Well, congrats,” Matthew said, raising his bottle. 

“Thanks,” she replied, feeling slightly silly as she toasted her water against their beers.

Before another moment had passed, Chris got a page on his beeper. Apparently, the poet who had performed at the open house had left something of his behind and would need to be let in early the next morning. Matthew and Chris began commiserating amongst themselves about the performer, who was apparently less than a joy to work with. Biting on the inside of her cheek, Ella tried to suppress her smile. Too much joy made her nervous. It meant always waiting for the other shoe to drop. She’d had the odd mixture of anxiety and anticipation brewing in her stomach since opening Jess’s package. It was too much of a coincidence for her to be going to a school five minutes away from where Jess worked. Too perfect. She didn’t trust it. 

Beside her, Jess was trying equally hard to hold in his emotions. She would be in Philly. Right down the road. She hadn’t been right down the road from him in what felt like forever. There were still so many unknowns. But he couldn’t help the swell of his heart. What were the chances? Plastering on a smug smirk, a mask to hide his exhilaration at her news, he nudged her gently with his elbow. 

“So, you’re Philly bound?”

“Seems that way,” she said, nodding.

He hummed in acknowledgement, pausing to gaze at her for a moment. Freckles and Bette Davis eyes and a deep, raspy voice. So different but so familiar. She offered him a tiny smile, caught up in the moment. A swarm of pleasant butterflies fluttered in her stomach, and again, she wished they could kiss. Inside their private world, as they once had been. 

“Y’know, I think it was fate,” Jess said, smirk growing. “Us both ending up here.”

She snorted a laugh and shook her head slightly. “Not all that idealist bullshit again, Mariano.”

“Hey, not everything changes,” Jess shrugged, taking another sip.

“Guess not,” she said quietly, a fond sparkle in her hazel eyes. “But I’d expect nothing less from a Hemingway fetishist.”

Jess rolled his eyes. “Whatever, Stevie Nicks.”

Instead of retorting, Ella snatched the beer sitting before Jess and took a long sip. Setting it down in front of him again, she winked and then began to hum along to Julian Casablancas’s lyrics. 

. . .

“I’m serious. I was really planning on just getting a motel,” Ella insisted. 

Shushing her, a finger on his lips, Chris shook his head. He stood in the tiny kitchen, rummaging through the rusty fridge for some drunk food. Matthew was tipsy, and had already retreated to his room. Chris, however, had managed to get absolutely wasted. They’d practically dragged him up the stairs in Truncheon to the apartment above, while he babbled loudly, complaining about his boyfriend being out of town for the open house. Now, as Jess and Ella argued about her sleeping in the apartment, he offered slurred interjections and cackles off to the side. 

Jess, having only drunk two beers over the course of the day, rolled his eyes at his friend. “Go to bed, man.”

“Make me, Jess,” Chris replied jovially, retrieving a box of fried chicken from behind the half-and-half. Straightening up, he shot them both a smug grin and made for the bedroom he shared with Matthew. “Have fun, kids.”

“Good luck fighting that sweater off your head,” Ella quipped, not able to stop the words before they left her mouth. Chris, for all his exuberance, was wearing deceptively stuffy clothes. A button-up with a patterned sweater over it, khakis. 

Again, Chris only laughed. “She’s feisty. Let’s keep her forever.”

Smiling thinly, Ella gave him the finger. He blew her a kiss before entering the dark room and shutting the door loudly behind him. Ella winced slightly. She knew Matthew was probably already asleep in one of the room’s twin beds.

Jess ran a hand down his face, standing amid the cluttered mess of their living room. 

Ella turned back to Jess, crossing her arms over her chest as an amused crease formed between her brows. “How’d you end up living with them again?”

“Long story.”

“I would imagine.”

“He’s usually not quite so intolerable, but it’s been a big day,” Jess said apologetically. “And he’s still super pissed his boyfriend had to go outta town for work.”

Ella shrugged. “Hey, no problem. I like them. But, yes, it  _ has _ been a big day. And I don’t want to keep you up any longer. So, why don’t I just stay at a motel?”

Shaking his head, Jess gestured for her to follow him and led the way to his bedroom. “Yeah,  _ right _ . It’s past midnight. You can just crash with me. Not like we haven’t shared a bed before.”

A heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Are you sure? At least let me take the couch. I’ve been sleeping on one for two years, anyway.”

“At Lane’s?” Jess asked, switching on the ceiling light as they entered.

Surveying the bedroom, a smile immediately came to Ella’s lips. The living room was an absolute mess, but he’d managed to keep his own room decently clean. In the small space, he had only a queen-sized bed, pushed against the wall with the windows, and a dresser, on top of which his boombox sat. Piles of books and CDs littered the scratched wood floor, mostly in the free corners. A framed poster of Nietzche hung above his bed, and she burst out laughing when she saw it, before she could help herself. 

“What?” Jess asked, brows furrowed. 

She pointed to the poster, then bit down on her thumb nail to stifle her giggles. “Nothing, I’m just glad you’re becoming self-aware.”

He rolled his eyes playfully. “Already overstaying your welcome, Stevens. The bathroom’s the first door on the left when you walk into the apartment. You can get changed, brush your teeth, whatever.”

Nodding, Ella slipped off her shoes near the door and put down her heavy shoulder bag. It only took a minute of rifling through before she found the pajamas and toothbrush she’d packed for the short trip. Since she was little, she couldn’t fall asleep before brushing her teeth first. Clutching the supplies in her arms, she turned back to Jess. He’d taken off his suit jacket and tossed it down on the bed, was unclasping his watch and setting it down on the dresser. He looked so grown up in the yellowish overhead light, bright against the dark green walls. 

“This is really okay with you, Jess?” she asked, sounding shyer than he’d ever heard. 

“Yeah,” he replied, flashing her a reassuring smile. “What kind of host would I be otherwise?”

Smiling back, Ella nodded again. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As she left the room, Jess let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in and ran a hand over his mouth. He thought back to the night she’d let him sleep over, dragged him from the freezing back seat of his old car into her warm bedroom. It was the least he could do. Truly. But anxiety squeezed his insides tightly. He tried to shake it off. Ella herself had said he didn’t need to be nervous. He changed into some sweatpants and a t-shirt quickly, running his hands through his neat hair and turning it messy. When she returned, face washed and teeth brushed, he was just flicking on his bedside lamp and pulling back the blue comforter. He recognized the Bowie t-shirt she wore from some vague memory. 

“No KISS shirt?” he asked.

She chuckled as she stuffed her dress and toothbrush into her bag near the door. “Oh, I never travel with that. Couldn’t bear for it to get lost.”

“Oh, right, my mistake,” Jess said. “You can turn out that switch, if you want.”

Ella turned off the overhead light, left only in the glow of his nightstand lamp. Before the nausea could overtake her, she powered through the shakiness of her hands and came to sit across from him. It didn’t need to be strange. She’d just gotten her best friend back. And they could sleep in the same bed as they had so many times before. 

“Since I’m already taking advantage of your hospitality,” she began, eyeing the half-empty pack of Marlboros on the floor by the bed, “could I maybe borrow a cigarette?”

Smirking fondly, Jess nodded, reaching down to grab the pack and the lighter. He lit hers for her as she held it between her lips, and then his own. He cracked open the window and flicked ash out into the May midnight.

“What’s got you smoking?” he asked.

She sighed through her nose in white streams. “My interview with the Dean tomorrow. I mean, I’m already in. And  _ they _ contacted  _ me _ because of my portfolio. But, I don’t know. Anything could happen.”

“But it won’t,” Jess said. “It’ll be fine. You’re Lily Briscoe, remember?”

A weak smile crossed her face and she gave an unconvincing nod. Then, she looked back up at him curiously. “What about you? Still smoke as much as you did in high school?”

Jess shook his head. “No. Almost never. But I may have panicked about this whole open house thing last night.”

“Looked like it went great,” she said, tapping ash out the window, sitting cross-legged.

Shrugging, Jess leaned back against the wall behind his bed. “We’ll see what that lady from the paper writes.”

“Who cares what she thinks?” Ella asked.

“People who could spend their money here,” Jess answered, chuckling breathily.

Waving a dismissive hand, Ella took a final drag of her cigarette. She crushed it out on the windowsill, where she saw the small, circular remnants of smokes past, before throwing butt out the window into the dumpster below. “Maybe. Seems like you’ve got a pretty decent underground following already.”

“And you call me the idealist,” he said, shaking his head and tossing out his own cigarette. 

She laughed lightly, following Jess’s lead as he closed his window again and got under the covers. Soon, they faced each other with their heads against Jess’s pillows. They smelled like him. After shutting off his lamp, Jess regarded Ella in the dim light. He felt like he’d stepped through a door into a memory or a dream. 

“Speaking of Truncheon, tell me about the book,” she said quietly.

“Which book?”

“ _ Your _ book, Sherlock,” she teased.

He sighed, swallowing dryly. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” she replied. “I mean, when did you write it?  _ How _ did you write it? Did ever end up getting a computer, or-”

“Woah, Stevens,” he interrupted, snickering at her rapid-fire questions. “I started writing it when I was still in Stars Hollow.”

She furrowed her brows. “What?”

“Yeah. That notebook I came back for when I picked up my car? I sort of...started before I left. I took a break in California. But I started taking advantage of the library computers when I got back to New York.”

“So, it really  _ was _ an  _ On The Road _ thing.”   
  


“Not quite so ambitious,” he said. “But, once I read that Stephen King book you got me...I just got started.”

“And you never told me?” she asked.

He only shrugged in response.

Ella shook her head slightly, watching him with furrowed brows. “Curiouser and curiouser, Mariano.”

“I wanted to surprise you with it.”

“Well, you did.” She thought she saw a flush rise to his cheeks, but couldn’t quite tell in the low light. Something indecipherable flashed across his eyes as he hesitated. She took the lead instead. “Hey Jess?”

“Hm?”

“I’m so fucking proud of you.”

Jess rolled his eyes,  _ really  _ blushing now. His face went scarlet, and he uttered a nervous chuckle. “Thanks, Daria.”

“Anytime, James Dean.”

Ignoring the flip of his stomach, Jess let the compliment roll off him like water and faced her earnestly. “Did you say you were still livin’ with Lane?”

She nodded. “Yeah. It was just...easier than getting my own place. A smaller chunk of the rent to pay. Especially with how many classes I was taking, and it was right across the street from Luke’s. At some point, we upgraded to a futon, so it was a little easier to sleep.”

Jess snorted. “I’m pretty sure you could fall asleep in the middle of a tornado, get transported to Oz, then back to Kansas, and wouldn’t wake up the whole time.”

“Be that as it may,” she said pointedly, “it was pretty okay. But Lane and Zach are getting married in a couple weeks. It would be time to move out even if it  _ wasn’t _ for grad school.”

“Lane and Zach?” Jess asked, brows furrowed in surprise. “What about that Dave guy?”

Ella sighed softly. “He went to California for college. Eventually, they broke up. And she was on and off with Zach and...I don’t know. He’s not the worst guy. And I know there’s no talking her out of it, anyway.”

“People are gonna do what they’re gonna do,” Jess agreed, thinking back to his own mother’s last wedding. 

“I’ll miss her, though. Without Lane, I would probably still have majored in history. Ended up teaching at Stars Hollow High.”

“No way.”

“I’m not so sure. But just seeing Lane play with the band all the time...she looked so happy. Even though she had no money and her mom was pissed at her. I thought maybe actually trying to do what you love wasn’t such a crazy idea,” she explained, voice husky and tired, but so lively. 

It made Jess smile. “That’s great, Eleanor.”

She shrugged again and cleared her throat, wincing slightly. “Ugh, Jesus. Smoking is never worth it. I don’t think I’ve smoked since...since the last time we saw each other. The morning after you left.”

His face fell. There it was. Finally. “I’m sorry, Elle.”

“For what?” she asked dismissively. The past was past.

“For that night. Everything. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s okay, Jess.”

“Luke gave me this stupid self-help book and I read it and we kinda went to the wedding together and I got...mixed up.”

Smiling softly, Ella shifted in her spot to move a little closer to him. “I’m gonna need more details on that self-help book later.”

He uttered a self-conscious scoff.

“But, really Jess, it’s okay. I understand. And...I just...I wasn’t ready,” she said finally, struggling for her words. “After I moved out of my dad’s house...I still needed Lane. And Lorelai. And Luke. I always thought getting away would fix everything. But...I wasn’t ready for you.”

A sad smile tugged at his lips. “I don’t think I was ready for you, either.”

Breathing deeply, Ella let the moment pass between them. Forgiveness, maybe? On both sides? She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she knew it made her feel calmer. Maybe ripping old wounds open was worth it if it meant they would finally get the chance to heal. 

“I bet you started breaking hearts when you got here though. What with the starry-eyed starving artist thing you’ve got going on,” she said. She knew it was a flimsy attempt at being sly, but she just couldn’t bring herself to ask him outright. And he was letting her sleep in his bed. That was a positive sign. But she needed to know for sure. 

He chuckled slightly and shook his head. “Not really. Turns out, people don’t flock to the guy with nothing but a shitty final draft and a duffel bag to his name.” Then, after a beat of silence, sirens blaring from somewhere off in the distance of the city, he spoke again. “What about you?”

The inquisitive, almost hopeful, tone in his voice made her heart skip a beat. “Nothing extraordinary. A couple dates. Guys. Girls. Never got anything to stick.”

“Hm.” Jess paused, watching Ella watch him. 

The sound of the singing crickets mixed strangely with the murmur of the city, even in the early Monday morning hours. Ella tried to remember each detail of the present moment. Lying beside Jess in Philadelphia, preparing to go to grad school, finally out from under the thumbs of her father and Stars Hollow. And in love. She decided on it finally. Nothing had changed. She loved Jess as she had for so long, even if she had never truly realized it. Maybe she had, but was too scared to admit it. She thought back to the day he took her to the Met, riding back home in his car, nothing but the dark, empty highway around them. She’d almost said it then. But she hadn’t. Even then, though, she’d been completely his. All or nothing. Do or die.

Slowly, she brought her hand out from under the covers and placed it on his cheek. She stroked his stubbly skin with her thumb. The boy who’d turned into a man all on his own, who had always been so guarded and so kind. Who gave her a bed when she was drunk and bought her charcoals on Valentine's Day and took her to museums and wrote books for her and hung her drawings on his wall. Who she had taken to a private movie and driven to the emergency room and kissed as an Interpol song played and brought in from the cold. The give and take which had always been there, making her feel safe. Easy. Home.

Taking a moment to close his eyes, Jess quieted all the thoughts screaming in his head. 

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you too,” he replied, too overwhelmed to say much of anything else. He remembered the night on the bridge when they’d decided to try together. How the nerves had made his stomach churn. But she’d taken his hand in hers. She’d made the first move. And made his whole being feel calm. She had cared for him when he couldn’t care for himself. It made him feel like a teenager again. Her touch. Her voice. Her mind. 

He wound his arm around her waist and brought her closer, hugging her tightly. They were silent and comfortable. Eventually, Ella’s breathing deepened and Jess felt her muscles relax, holding her. Outside, he could see the full moon reflecting light against a clear night sky. And he felt so content he could barely shut his eyes for a second, fearful of missing anything.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	27. How Kurt Cobain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella takes a morning walk through Philly. Then, she takes Jess to Lane’s wedding.

Tangled beneath the sheets, Ella awoke with the sunlight streaming through Jess’s window and into her closed eyes. She squinted as she cleared her throat and shifted to find Jess’s side of the bed empty. Furrowing her brows, she raked a hand through her messy hair and sat up against the green wall, Nietzche’s eyes looking over her almost comically. Still, she found no Jess in the room, though the door was slightly ajar. The smell of coffee drifted in from the kitchen. She worried frantically if she had missed her interview with the Dean. 

“Jess?” she called.

After only a moment, he waltzed in with the paper in one hand and a mug in the other. He smirked when he saw the scowl on her face. Yet another thing he could count on never changing. Ella Stevens was not a morning person. “Yeah?”

“What the hell? Why didn’t you wake me?” she demanded, rubbing at her eyes with both hands. 

Jess snickered. “Like it’s so easy. I tried. You told me to fuck off.”

“I did not.”

“Oh, but you did. Twice.”

Groaning slightly, she shook her head at herself. “Sorry.”

“No problem. I’m used to the colorful vocabulary by now,” he shrugged, taking a long sip of his black coffee. 

She rushed over to her bag, convinced of her tardiness. 

“Woah, where’s the fire?” Jess asked.

“What time is it?”

“Relax. It’s only nine. Your interview isn’t until eleven, right?’ he asked, smug smirk ever-present.

Blowing out a small breath, she nodded. “Yeah. Jesus. I thought it was noon.”

“Why?”

“That’s usually how late I sleep when I forget to set an alarm,” she said, running her fingers through her hair again. 

He chuckled. “Well, you’ve got a while. I had to get up to let the poet guy in. There’s donuts in the kitchen. Campus is only a few blocks away. I can walk you there later, if you want.”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she tried to fight the smile which threatened to cross her face. “I don’t need an escort, Mariano.”

“Oh, right. I forgot you know exactly how to get there from here,” he said, feigning understanding.

She rolled her eyes. “I brought a map.”

“That’s cute,” he teased. 

“Fuck you.”

“It’s not the twentieth century anymore. Just let me walk you, Stevens.”

“Okay,  _ fine _ ,” she conceded, finally letting herself break into a little grin.

. . .

Cloudy light shone through the overcast sky in gray tones, but the air was light. Philadelphia was not due for rain. Ella breathed in the city as they strolled down the sidewalk. It was a little grimy, but so alive. The pulse of the noise and the people made her feel excited, inspired. She would have to draw something of it as soon as she got a moment. Jess had his hands shoved in his pockets, stealing occasional glances at Ella. He saw the same wonder in her eyes that he had when she’d come to visit him in New York all those years ago. A pleasant warmth radiated throughout him, and for just a little while he stopped wondering where they stood with each other, what would happen, about the words they still needed to speak. 

She fiddled with the thin strap of her watch as she walked along. “Do you like Philly better than New York?” 

He perked his head up as she suddenly broke the silence between them. “Oh yeah. Less people. Better art scene.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. And it also helps that my mom doesn’t live here.”

“Ah,” Ella replied knowingly, nodding slightly. “So, you guys haven’t talked much since the wedding, I take it?”

“Every now and again,” he shrugged. 

They turned down a road lined with coffee shops and bookstores. Ella could tell it was a backwards way of getting to campus, but expected nothing less of Jess. It made her want to smile. The more she saw of the city, the more she could tell he belonged. Finally, he had a place where he fit. 

“She  _ did _ call me when April showed up, though,” Jess continued casually. 

Ella uttered a small laugh. “Yeah. That was...straight outta left field. She’s a good kid, though. Can recite the whole periodic table in like sixty seconds. She kinda reminds me of my brother.”

“Adam?” Jess asked. 

Ella nodded, the warm breeze blowing her bangs back from her face. Her hair was in a low bun, and she was dressed in the same clothes as the day before. Most of her wardrobe wasn’t the most professional. And straight-laced clothes, she thought, were an important balance for her visible tattoos. 

“How’s he doin’?” 

She shrugged, smiling lightly. “He’s good. Almost done with his junior year. He’s applying to all those big schools. MIT is his top choice, I think.”   
  


“Jeez. Another valedictorian in the family?”

“Maybe. He might get a full ride, especially since…” she paused, biting at the inside of her cheek. Looking over at Jess, she saw his curious expression. He seemed more open than he ever had, comfortable in his own skin. When she continued, her tone was firmer, more direct. “Well, my dad left to live with my uncle in Baltimore a few months ago. It’s just Adam and Fiona back in the house. He’ll get lots of financial aid points for having a single step-parent.”

“Oh, that’s…”

“Yeah. But, I think everyone’s better off,” she said, averting her gaze from him. Again, Jess thought he saw her try and grab for a necklace, but instead she reached up to tug gently at one of her small earrings. “Once the baby thing didn’t work out with Fiona, my dad started drinking more and...I think he realized he’d never...losing my mom. He’s never gonna be the same. Adam’s doing well, though. And Fiona’s doing better. It’s better.”

He hummed in acknowledgement, appraising her with a careful eye. “I’m glad, then.”

“Me too.” She cast him a tiny, reassured smile. “Sorry. That’s heavy stuff and it’s not even afternoon.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry over,” he replied.

Rushing over a crowded crosswalk as the seconds blinked off the timer, Jess took her hand to lead her. She wouldn’t be late, but he could tell she was anxious to get where she needed to be. “We’re almost there.”

He thought for a moment about disentangling their fingers, but she gave his hand a squeeze instead. His heart glowed with nostalgia and hope. The noise around them seemed like music. Cherry trees, which dotted campus, were blooming and they stepped over the petals beneath their feet. Hardly thinking, Jess ran a thumb over the smooth skin of the back of her hand. Her smile grew.

They were approaching the brick building which held the dean of the art school’s office. Students whizzed past them with backpacks and frantic looks. A sense of surrealism dawned on Ella. She was going to end up at an Ivy League, after all. Just a little later than she had once hoped she would. The air smelled clean and damp with spring. 

“So,” Jess began, coming to a stop a few feet from the walkway which led to the double doors, “after this, you’re all set?”

“Guess so,” she said, slightly breathless with the moment.

He hummed, looking around him. “Y’know, this morning, I was thinking-”

“That’s a bad sign,” Ella interjected.

Jess rolled his eyes. “Age has not helped your stand-up material, Stevens.”

“I disagree,” she said shortly. “Please, continue.”

He sighed heavily, separating their fingers and running a hand over his mouth. “Well, you don’t have a place to live here yet, right?”

“Not yet.”

“I was thinking maybe you’d want to come live with us. Above Truncheon,” he said, spitting out the words as fast as he could. 

Ella’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “ _ Really _ ?”

Jess nodded shyly. “My bed’s big enough. And I don’t have that much stuff; there’s room for you. Chris already loves you. I’m sure Matthew wouldn’t mind either. And your sketches are down in the main room anyway. We could put a price on them and...only if you want to. I know it’s a lot to process, so you don’t need to answer right now or anything.”

Her eyes were calculating as she gathered her thoughts. “Just so I’m clear...you want us to get back together. And you want us to live together in your apartment. With Matthew and Chris. Above Truncheon.”

“Yes,” Jess confirmed, tone growing more confident, though his heart was beating painfully against his ribs. 

“Are you sure? I mean...we haven’t seen each other in two years. Maybe time has corrupted me,” she said, voice serious despite her weak joke. 

Again, he sighed. “I think we were both pretty corrupted to begin with-”

“How Kurt Cobain of you.”

“And I don’t care how long it’s been. We’ve got a lot to make up for. I feel like I’ve been waiting for you forever. And I’m tired of waiting. I’m ready to try again. Really try, this time. But only if you are. Only if you want this too,” he said. 

A familiar nausea rose in his throat, and his hands began to shake. The only other time he’d taken such a leap of faith, it hadn’t gone over well. But everything was different. He was settled, with a steady income. She had graduated, and was finally embracing her dreams. His foolish hope persisted, even still. When he’d woken up next to her again, in a bed which he’d bought himself, and eaten breakfast with her, read morning papers with her, he could think of nothing he wanted more. Communication, he reminded himself. Open and honest communication. Even if he still wanted to roll his eyes at just the thought of Luke’s self-help nonsense. 

“And,” he continued, when she hadn’t said a word, was only turning thoughts over in her head silently, “you don’t have to say anything now. I...dammit. I should’ve done this after your interview. I just got caught up after yesterday and this morning. I wasn’t sure if I’d see you later and...I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m sorry. Really, you don’t have to say anything-”

“Jess,” she interrupted, finally locking eyes with him again. “Just shut up for a second.”

“Okay.”

After chewing on her thumb nail for a moment, she blew a breath out through her nose with finality. “Can I get cactuses again? There was no place for them at Lane’s. And, Jesus, you guys have  _ got _ to organize your living room. I mean, the kitchen and your bedroom are okay. But I have no idea how you guys even find anything. The piles of paperwork on the table are, like, seven feet high.”

A slow grin formed on Jess’s face, and the worry began to clear from his brown eyes. “You can do whatever you want, Stevens.”

“Truer words never spoken,” she agreed earnestly. “You better make room for my fucking records then, too. They’ve been living in my car for way too long.”

Jess chuckled, nodding slightly. His eyes lingered on her lips. “I was thinking about kissing you, just now. Is that okay?”

Ella thought her heart would melt at his words. “Go for it, Mariano.”

Jess brought his hands to her waist and kissed her. For the first time in years. Ella smiled into it, pressed against him. It tasted sugary-sweet, from the donuts they’d eaten. Her fingers tangled into his hair, longer and less greasy than she remembered. But it felt much the same. A tingly joy began in her stomach and then spread throughout her body, new and old and welcome and perfect. 

. . .

Of all the people not to be at Lane’s wedding, Ella did not expect Luke to miss it. For some reason, he was still out of town for April’s field trip. Not that it was any of her business, but she couldn’t help be slightly irritated at his absence. However, she wasn’t entirely alone. Though Lane and the other people in her life weren’t exactly sold on him, Ella had taken a shot in the dark and invited Jess. At Mrs. Kim’s millionth reference to her loneliness, her lack of a date, Ella had finally let it slip to Lane. She had seen Jess again. They were talking on the phone every single night. She was set to move in with him in a week. And, soon, she was calling him up. Hearing the surprised tone of his voice, his apprehension to come back to town. But, honestly, he’d caved a little quicker than she thought he would. All it had taken was her offering to try Hemingway again. And Kerouac. She knew she was going to absolutely loathe the latter, but it would be worth it. 

As the ceremony ended, most of Lane’s family, including her mother, left the gathering in town square. None of them were eager to party with the townies. Kirk revealed the white food truck parked on the street opposite the gazebo to actually be the bar. He was exploring business ownership, and Yummy Bartenders was his most recent endeavor. Lorelai, without Luke and somehow having ended up with Rory’s father, Christopher, as her date, flocked straight to the alcohol. It made Ella snort a laugh, but inside, it made her heart ache. Luke and Lorelai had taken so long to get together. And now, things were headed nowhere good. A hot, dry sunlight shone down on them in yellow tones, and soon the sky would darken. Everyone’s mood had changed as soon as they left the church. Lorelai ripped off the bottom half of Lane’s dress, revealing her calves joyfully. Standing beside Ella, Rory let out a hoot of excitement and rushed over to the new bride. Snickering, Ella took the long pin from her low bun and let her blonde waves loose down her back. 

Jess tucked her hair behind her ear gently as they both took a moment to breathe. The church had been stuffy and hot, filled to the brim with people. The air was no cooler, but at least there was a wide open space to mingle in. Grabbing his hand, Ella ventured a glance at Jess. As soon as his rusty Ambassador had rolled into town three hours earlier, she could sense how anxious he was. Maybe just being in Stars Hollow made him uncomfortable, or maybe it gave him too many flashbacks to his own mother’s wedding. 

“You okay? I have the key to the diner, if you wanna go. I called Luke earlier and he said we could stay in the apartment. I’ll be up there later,” she said, tone apologetic.

Jess shook his head. “No. I’m fine. Just don’t know where we should sit.”

“Next to Miss Patty?” she asked. The dance teacher had noticed her across the way, and Ella waved back at her. 

“She’ll eat me alive,” Jess sighed. “What about with Rory and Lorelai?”

Narrowing her eyes, Ella considered it. Then, she bit the inside of her cheek for a moment. “I don’t know. I haven’t been so close with them recently. And I don’t know if I wanna get in the middle of the happy family back together.”

“Fair enough,” Jess agreed. “Alright. Miss Patty and Babette, then. But I’m counting on your protection.”

Her grin grew wicked. “Don’t worry, honey. I’m your knight in shining polyester.”

. . .

Hep Alien was on fire, despite the wasted state of every single band member. Balmy breezes blew and Ella’s flushed skin was finally beginning to cool down. The night was dark and the sky clear. Every so often, her eyes flicked to Rory, Lorelai, and Christopher’s table. Sookie and Jackson had been sitting with them, but they had long since left. Without Ella to babysit the kids, they’d had to hire a new girl. Jackson could barely handle the nerves at a random high-schooler watching his babies. Ella twirled her rings nervously on her fingers, while Patty, Babette, and Maury chain-smoked across the centerpiece floral arrangement. Jess, at her side, had his arm around her shoulder. He stroked her upper arm absently. 

He raised an eyebrow and followed her gaze to Rory. “What’s with you?”

“Hm?” she asked, blinking the reverie from her eyes. Facing him again, Ella was struck by how much more mature he looked. Back in Stars Hollow, but as a man with a publishing business and a decently neat bedroom of his own. Despite the uneasiness brewing in her stomach, she also felt pride appear. It didn’t shock her where he ended up. But it still made her feel such joy to see him successful and content. 

Jess nodded in the direction of the Gilmores, three tables over. “Did something happen between you guys? Is it why you weren’t a bridesmaid?”

Ella shook her head. “No. I wasn’t a bridesmaid because Mrs. Kim hates me with the fire of a thousand suns. I mean, my outfit alone is probably enough for her to condemn me.”

Giving Ella a once-over, Jess smirked wider. Her camisole dress was black, with small pink flowers embroidered on it. It had thin spaghetti straps and fell above her knees. Of course, there were no heels on her shoes, black leather ballet flats. The ensemble was so very Ella, along with her dark eye makeup. And, it was true, Mrs. Kim was not a fan of anything which could be described as ‘so very Ella.’

“It does give off a certain  _ Beetlejuice _ vibe,” Jess agreed.

“The best compliment you’ve ever given me,” she said lightly, then turned back to the crowd of wedding-goers. “But...I don’t know. Rory slept with Dean when he was married and then took a year off from Yale and stole a boat.”

“ _ What? _ ” Jess chirped, almost choking on the watery soda he sipped. He’d debated going to the bar, but decided against it. Best not to get drunk in the town where everyone hated you. Especially when your long lost girlfriend didn’t drink anyway. 

A certain sadness came to Ella’s smile, shrinking slightly. She tugged at her earring. “Yeah. And she was fighting with Lorelai forever. They weren’t talking. I’m also pretty sure the guy Rory’s dating now is some trust fund kid from Yale with a porsche.”

“Ugh,” Jess grimaced, unable to hold back his distaste.

“We’re just...different. We grew up. Went in different directions. I mean...Lane and Rory are still best friends. I was friendly with her at a bachelorette party last night. But it’s weird now. I can’t...I don’t really know her anymore, I guess.”

Jess nodded. 

She shrugged again, deflective. “I still love Lorelai. But I haven’t seen her much lately, since Luke didn’t want her to meet April, which is a whole different beast. Things...changed. But, hey, maybe I changed too.”

“You did,” Jess said. “But not in a bad way.”

She scoffed, gently plucking at the collar of his white button-up. He wore with it black pants, completing their gothic look when they stood together. Ella knew, though, that both of their outfits came cheap and basic. That’s why they had them. Of course, he still refused to wear a tie of any kind. “You too. Still a jackass, though.”

“Glad you see me in such a positive light.”

“But, in an arguing-with-me-about-Kerouac kind of way. Not in a gnome-stealing, running-off-to-California kind of way,” she explained, feeling goosebumps rise on her pale skin where his fingertips still brushed against her arm. 

As much as Jess lived in his words, touch had always been such a major form of communication with him. Older and able to judge it more easily, Ella could see it. It calmed him down, made him feel safe. She could understand that. It was what happened when someone grew up in a place where they were often touched in anger. 

“Well, the Kerouac defense will never change. He’s a genius,” Jess insisted mockingly. 

Ella rolled her eyes, leaning back against him. “You’re impossible.”   
  


“Right back at ya.”

The band began one of their familiar White Stripes covers. Ella couldn’t count how many times she’d heard it over the years, during nightly practice. It was so odd to see Lane in a wedding dress, all grown up. A nostalgic smile ghosted over her lips and she sighed. Neither she nor Jess said a word for a long while, comfortable in each other’s grasp. June crickets and cicadas sung, mixing with the sound of Zach’s vocals. Patty and Babette laughed heartily at something across the table. The air smelled of cigarettes and beer and summer-cut grass. Soon, the song faded away and Zach played the opening chords to something different, something Ella hadn’t heard him play in a long time. “Sweet Thing” by Van Morrison, a cover they’d attempted after Ella moved in, when she’d let Lane hear one of her Jeff Buckley live albums, on which he did his own cover of the song. She broke into a full grin. It was the perfect song for a late-night wedding reception, romantic and long and calm. 

Jess seemed to notice her brightening up at the tune, as he sat up and faced her with a mysterious smile. “You wanna dance?”

She snorted a disbelieving chuckle. “Excuse me?”

“Do you wanna dance? I know you like this song.”

Ella raised her eyebrows. “Liking the song is one thing. Subjecting everyone to the horrifying visual of my dance moves is another.”

He rolled his eyes, standing up and extending a hand to her. “So dramatic. It’s a slow song. And we didn’t dance at Liz and TJ’s wedding. Making up for lost time.”

“Fine,” she sighed, taking his hand, and letting him pull her up. “But it’s your funeral.”

“I like to live dangerously,” Jess said, leading her to the dance floor. 

“Whatever, James Dean.”

Before they were out of range, Miss Patty blew a stream of bluish smoke in their direction and gave a bark of haughty laughter. “I’d watch out for her, young man. Have you heard about the domino incident of 1992? Ella made the  _ Gazette _ . Her talents run more towards the musical.”

His smirk grew. “I’ve been warned.”

They passed Lorelai on the way, lingering by the bar and sipping her Manhattan. Tumbler filled with cherries, sugar on the rim. The sight almost made Ella want to chuckle, almost grimace. The drink looked as sweet as cotton candy, but she would expect nothing less of a Gilmore woman. More than half of the sleepovers she’d had with Rory involved a midnight raid of the kitchen. S’mores pop tarts were one of Ella’s personal favorites. Lorelai reached out an arm to stop them, wavering drunkenly on her feet. 

“Ugh, I can’t believe Sid Vicious is back,” she slurred to Ella, pointing at Jess angrily. 

With Lorelai so close to her face, Ella could smell the tequila on her breath. “I told you before. He’s got more of a Richard Hell vibe, in my opinion.”

Jess blushed, but said nothing. He only tightened his grip on Ella’s hand. 

“Your uncle is out of town,” Lorelai continued, facing Jess.

“That he is,” Jess said shortly. Time had passed, but it was clear Lorelai still wasn’t quite over her contempt for him. Though, he could definitely recognize what an asshole he’d been as a teenager. 

Lorelai laughed bitterly. “He’s with his daughter. Who Ella’s met and you’ve met and  _ Rory’s _ met. And  _ I _ haven’t met!”

Searching her head for a careful response, Ella was utterly relieved when Rory came up from behind her mother. 

“Hey, mom, let’s get some coffee for you, why don’t we?” Rory asked, voice bouncy and nervous.

“You got her?” Ella raised her eyebrows at Rory as she took her mother by the shoulders and began steering her away.

“Oh, I guess we’re going over here now,” Lorelai muttered in drunken surprise.

“Yeah, go have fun,” Rory answered with a little wink, disappearing into the crowd with her mother, headed for the table where her father and some steaming coffee sat. 

Blowing out a long breath, Jess shook his head. “I take it that she and Luke aren’t seeing eye to eye.”

“Understatement of the year,” Ella scoffed. “No matter where she and Luke are though, I think you’ll always be a portrait of Sid Vicious to her.”

“Not even with the haircut?” he asked as they made it to the edge of the wooden dance floor. 

“Not even with the haircut,” she replied with a smug smirk.

With a heavy breath, Ella placed her hands on the back of Jess’s neck as he brought his hands to her waist. She felt glad Hep Alien’s version of the song was nearly ten minutes long; it would have nearly been over after Patty’s warning and Lorelai’s ramblings if not. 

“Don’t worry, Elle. Just follow my lead,” Jess said quietly, beginning to sway side to side, taking small steps. 

“Shut up, I’m focusing,” she hissed, watching her feet.

He chuckled slightly. “Relax. Just look at me.”

Sighing again, Ella managed to drag her gaze away from her shoes and up to Jess’s big brown eyes. 

“Hi,” he whispered, smiling fondly.

“Hi,” she replied, feeling the anxiety in her stomach lessen slightly. “Deja-vu, huh?”

“Maybe a little,” he said, shrugging. “But I’d say things are looking a little sunnier now.”

“Still finding those silver linings.” Ella gave him an affectionate peck on the lips.

Why was she nervous?, she asked herself. She didn’t need to be. Maybe it was the future creeping up on her, or her exit from the only place she had ever lived only a week away. But, as she looked at Jess, she felt her heartbeat slow. And her lips even turned up a touch at the corners. Where she was going, he’d be.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated! This is the product of some intense writer's block so I have no idea the quality honestly.


	28. A Thousand Beach Boys Songs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella visit California.

The sun was high and bright in the Philadelphia sky, beating down on the concrete of the city, when Ella finally awoke at half past nine to the sound of a siren outside. Early August had brought a heat wave to the East coast, and the hot air always rose to the top floor of Truncheon. They were sleeping only under a thin blanket, and Ella had found she had thrown it off herself at some point in the night. Or perhaps Jess had. He was a light sleeper, often had bad dreams, tossing and turning. But his side of the bed was empty, with a sticky note left on the pillow in his place. She furrowed her brows; it was Saturday, the beginning of her last two weeks before classes and office hours started, and she didn’t know of him having any plans. Stifling a yawn, she picked up the note and squinted at it in the harsh sunlight streaming through the window. 

_ Morning Daria, _

_ Went to get coffee. Be back soon. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. _

_ -James Dean _

In spite of the roll of her eyes, Ella snickered before rising out of bed. She pulled a mauve cotton dress over her head, tying her hair into a low bun. Padding on bare feet into the living room, she smiled as she noticed Chris was up, pouring himself some cereal at the tiled island. Matthew had stayed over at some woman’s house, though he wouldn’t tell them her name. Ella went to the corner of the living room and put a Joni Mitchell record on. Then, she hopped on a stool across from Chris. 

“Where’s your boy toy?” Chris asked through a mouthful of cereal, his hair sticking up in all directions. 

She snorted a laugh. “Getting coffee. He left me a note.”

“Adorable,” he deadpanned. 

“Mm. Sickening, isn’t he?” Ella asked, mocking fondly. 

Chris nodded, then tilted his head over in the direction of the record player. “Really? Joni Mitchell?”

“She’s a genius. Choose your next words carefully,” she warned.

“Isn’t she just a little...too sweet?” he asked.

Ella scoffed. “No one who likes disco as much as you do should be allowed to criticize a Renaissance woman like Joni Mitchell.”

“Disco is the best,” Chris said casually. “And Joni Mitchell is the worst.”

“Ugh, I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that,” Ella groaned, rolling her eyes dramatically. “I had this girlfriend last year who hated Joni Mitchell. It was, like, half the reason we broke up.”

Chris’s eyebrows shot up in an expression of surprise as a smile broke out on his face. “Girlfriend?”

She nodded. “You’re looking at your resident bisexual.”

“Yes! You’ve got to come to Pride with us in September! Jess and Matthew came last year, and they’re great, but, they’re also both so very straight,” he said, laughing slightly.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella allowed her own grin to appear. She’d never been to a pride parade before, though she had always wanted to. Eventually, Lane, Zach, and Bryan had figured out she was dating a woman for a couple months during her third year of college. And they’d taken it surprisingly well. Lane wasn’t completely sold on the idea, but Ella wasn’t shocked, given the strict Christian Kim upbringing. They didn’t kick her out, didn’t speak to her hatefully, only shrugged (with a few lingering, confused looks from Lane) and went about their day. And so they had been added to the list of four people in the whole world who knew about her sexuality, though she’d never actually told them her label. Jess was the only one who knew the details of who she was. 

But Philly was different, she had to remind herself. Chris was openly gay, held hands with his boyfriend in public, even kissed him occasionally. There were some looks, but no remarks. No one made jokes at their expense. It was refreshing and liberating and, at times, almost made her feel like crying. And though she was dating a man, she was still just as bisexual. There was a part of her Stars Hollow would simply never have been able to swallow. Especially since Jess had been her boyfriend for so long, she knew some people in town wouldn’t have even believed it. They would have told her it was a phase, it would pass, or she would eventually be a lesbian. The only people in town she thought might be able to understand were Miss Patty or Lorelai, though she had never gotten the courage to tell them. 

“Yeah, I’d love that,” she replied, trying to ignore the sting in her eyes. She blinked back the wetness, tucking her hair behind her ears. 

Over the speakers, Joni Mitchell crooned a long, lilting high note, making Ella giggle as Chris uttered a grunt of dissatisfaction. 

“She really broke you two up?” Chris asked, beginning to sip the sweetened, sugary milk from his bowl. 

Ella shrugged. “Partially. Her name was Angie and she was this badass singer. But we just didn’t click. Music tastes were only a small part of the equation. She was a little too jealous and I was a little too hung up.”

“Hung up?” 

“On Jess,” she said shortly, thinking back to the last morning she’d spent in Angie’s apartment. When Angie had accused Ella of having lingering eyes for the men at her concert the night before. And Ella hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the way Jess had never cared she liked both men and women. Had never bought into the stereotype of bisexual promiscuity. 

Putting his bowl in the sink, Chris shot her a smirk. “And  _ he’s _ the sickening one?”

“Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But, hey, not like Jess has great taste, either. He loves Hemingway and hates poetry.”

“I know,” Chris said, commiseratory, as he leaned against the counter back across from her. “When he bad mouths Tennyson? It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to homicidal.”

“I don’t know. Tennyson’s nothing compared to Byron,” Ella argued, shrugging slightly. 

Chris gasped. “Not you too! And here I thought we were beginning a beautiful friendship!”

Just then, Jess returned with a bag of coffee in one hand and his keys in the other. He always locked the door out of instinct, even when someone else was home. It was a habit Ella had noticed, but didn’t know the origin of. 

“Your girlfriend’s a traitor,” Chris said, feigning shock.

“Old news.” Jess went behind Chris to the coffee machine, his eyes tired without a dose of caffeine. Though he was nowhere near Gilmore level, Ella had noticed how dependent on coffee he had become since his teenage years. 

Chris shot Ella a final, joking glare, which she returned, before retreating back into his and Matthew’s room to get dressed. 

When the coffee was started, Jess put some tea on for her without having to ask. “I can’t believe you’re awake. Thought you’d still be out when I got back.”

“Not everyone likes to get up at sunrise, jackass,” she retorted with a smile. 

“I’m not judging you, Morticia. I know how the sunlight drains your vitality,” he said, smirking. 

“My God, you’re still  _ so _ hilarious.” 

“It’s been said.”

As Jess finished what he was doing, he walked toward her, elbows on the counter. He leaned over and pressed a long, sweet kiss to her lips. 

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hey,” she replied, a dreamy, sleepy glaze in her hazel eyes. 

Waiting for the coffee and tea to brew, he took one of her hands in his own across the island. For a moment, they were both seventeen and holding hands as she took her break at the diner. Luke often chided Jess for getting distracted by her while he was supposed to be working, their fingers tangled together over the counter while they had murmured conversations, customers around them long forgotten. 

“Thanks for the note, by the way,” she said. “Very 2003 of you.”

“Well, I didn’t wanna wake you up and I figured you might miss me too much if I didn’t leave one,” Jess said, shrugging.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mariano,” she teased, rolling her eyes at his smug expression.

“I would never,” he replied. Then, she saw his face grow more earnest. “So, I got a call from Jimmy while I was out.”

“Really?” she asked, eyebrows raised. 

He nodded. “Yeah, I started talking with him again about six months ago. Not like we’re close or anything. But he called to tell me he was marrying his girlfriend, and then he started checking in every month or so.”

“And you’re okay with that?” she asked. Images of a crestfallen Jess, shivering in the backseat of his car, flashed in her mind. 

Again, he shrugged. “He apologized for kicking me out. Which is more than my mom ever did. I mean...he’s still a deadbeat. I’m not ever gonna call him ‘daddy.’ But he lives in Venice.”

“Yeah. And?” she asked, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“ _ And _ he said we could come visit any time we want. You’ve still got two weeks before you go back to school, we just finished this month’s Zine yesterday, and Chris and Matthew can manage without me for a few days. What do you think?” he asked, a familiar hesitation lacing his voice. 

She took a moment to consider it, her eyes calculating. The look on her face almost made Jess want to smirk out of pure nostalgia; he could practically see the gears turning in her head. “California?”

“Yes. The subject of a thousand Beach Boys songs.”

“Thought you said I’d hate it there?”

“Well, when we get there you can decide for yourself.”

She snickered half-heartedly. “But does he mean  _ you _ can visit? Or  _ we _ can visit? I mean...I don’t want to go if he doesn’t expect me.”

“He knows about you. And I can guarantee his wife will like you a hell of a lot more than she likes me.” Averting his gaze sheepishly, Jess ran a thumb over the back of her hand. 

Again, she took a long pause before she spoke, tugging at her earring with a free hand. “Well, we obviously can’t afford to fly. And your car is out. So, we’d take my station wagon?” 

“My car is  _ not _ that bad,” Jess scoffed. “It’s driven me across the country a couple times.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” she said, “that car is death on wheels. When would we leave?”

“I don’t know. After breakfast,” he suggested, nonchalant. 

A surprised, breathy chuckle escaped her lips.

Smirking small and hopefully, Jess continued. “We’d be there by Tuesday. There’s bound to be a few cheap motels we can stop at on the way.”

No matter how well Ella knew Jess, there would always be a part of him capable of catching her completely off guard. The part of him which was wild and impulsive, while she often trapped herself in monotony. But, as she searched her mind for reasons not to go, she came up empty. Once she started school, there wouldn’t be any time. And though she was still feeling a little overwhelmed, away from Stars Hollow for the first time ever, she grasped on to the jewel of excitement shining within her. She had never really been anywhere. And it was finally time to go somewhere. She smiled widely.

“Okay, Mariano,” she said. “I’ll finally get to see what Joni Mitchell’s been singing about.”

. . .

The sky was a pale gray, blurred with a drizzly morning rain. By afternoon, they would be on the West Coast, after having driven for two days. Their backs were slightly sore from the lumpy motel mattresses and their stomachs uneasy from greasy diner food along the way. But Ella smiled softly as they sat in sleepy silence, a Led Zeppelin CD Lane had given her before she left playing on the station wagon’s speakers. Her fingers tapped silently on the steering wheel with the beat, the cracked pavement highway before them free of almost all cars. Only about six more hours to go. She didn’t know what to expect, and the nerves were brewing within her. Jess had told her some about his father and his family, but not enough to make her calm down. Enough to make her calm down probably didn’t exist. 

She let her thoughts wander, the anxiety in the back of her mind quieted momentarily. The fingers of her right hand were laced with Jess’s, her free left hand steering. 

“Y’know, I can see why you and Matthew are friends,” she thought aloud, breaking the comfortable silence. 

“How do you mean?”

Ella shrugged slightly. “I don’t know. You’re both into Bukowski and obscure quotes on t-shirts. You’re both shy. Though Matthew doesn’t have the whole broody writer thing going on like you.”

“I’m not shy,” Jess said defensively, brows furrowed. 

She scoffed, tossing a doubtful glance his way. “Of course you are, Jess. You’re blushing  _ right now _ .”

Sighing in frustration, Jess waved a dismissive hand. He could feel the heat of his face increasing. “That’s because you’re you. Not just anybody can make me blush.”

“Well, you also barely talk to anyone else besides me,” she continued.

“Maybe there’s just no one else worth talking to.” A crease of annoyance formed between his brows, almost a pouty look on his face.

“Whatever, tough guy.”

Jess breathed out through his nose, unable to get the flush to leave his face. 

“Hey, being shy is not a bad thing, Mariano,” she said emphatically. “It’s just the way you are. It’s cute.”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth. “I am  _ not _ cute.”

“Sure you aren’t,” she replied, her voice a sigh as she feigned innocence. 

“At least I’m not a Stevie Nicks groupie,” he said dejectedly.

Ella only laughed again as they made their way West.

. . . 

As soon as they reached the shore, Ella took Jess’s hand and squeezed tightly. He smirked over at her, squinting in the harsh August sunshine. The sky was free from all clouds, deep blue against the lighter shade of the water. People dotted the sand, but they had a pretty substantial amount of space as they laid out their towels and Ella dropped her purse down. Saltwater stung her nose, and she shaded her eyes with the flat of her hand as she looked around. It was low tide, and she could see fishing poles stuck in the sand far away in both directions, until the figures shrunk down to the size of ants and disappeared behind the horizon. Before she could succumb to her nerves, she stripped her flowy black dress off, left in nothing but the dark green bikini she’d bought for a trip to the lake with Lane a summer earlier. Raking her hands through her hair, wild in the sea wind, she wished she had paints with her. She’d brought her sketchbook and her charcoals of course, but an easel and a set of oils would be just too much to lug around. And, too expensive. 

Jess could see how anxious she was, as she tugged absently at her earlobe. Standing across from her in only his black swim trunks, he took her hand again. “Hey, earth to Eleanor. You wanna go in?”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella shot him an indecisive look. “ _ Or _ I could sit here and draw. Or we could read. Or do literally anything else but get swallowed up by the Pacific.”

He scoffed. “So dramatic. I’ll be right there. It’s low tide. C’mon. World bites you, you bite back.”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’re interpreting that phrase correctly.”

“And  _ I _ don’t think you’re as good at stalling as you think you are,” he shot back smugly, smirking. “C’mon.”

Though she let him lead her to the water, she still muttered begrudging hesitations. Her skin was crawling with anticipation, not only because she was about to feel the ocean for the first time in so long. They had yet to arrive at Jess’s father’s place. Both he and his wife were at work, his step-daughter at school. It made more sense for them to visit the beach first, then be at the house by dinner time. It wasn’t as though she was worried about them not liking her, or about being intimidated by them. The feeling was hard to pinpoint. Maybe it was because she was stepping into a part of Jess’s world she had never bore witness to. Almost the way it felt to go visit him in New York as a teenager. Then, however, there hadn’t been two days of driving to precede it, allowing time for her to stress. 

The water was cool as they walked in, making goosebumps rise on her freckled skin. Small shards of shells crunched beneath their feet uncomfortably until they were in up to their knees. She could feel the current against her legs. Waves crashed into whitish foam and bubbles around them, spraying droplets of water on their faces. Her hand tightened on Jess’s the further out they walked. Soon, they were up to their waists in water, the ocean crashing. Jess could see the fear shining in Ella’s hazel eyes as the tide beat against them, though the waves were nowhere near jarring or difficult to stand through. 

“Hey, Daria,” he said, disentangling their fingers and bringing a secure arm around her waist instead. “Relax. Once we get out past where the waves are crashing, it’ll be easy.”

“Remind me again why I agreed to this?”

She scanned the water ahead of them frantically, the point past which the waves were only forming and not crashing looking both near and impossibly far. Her muscles were rigid and she squeezed her eyes shut as they turned their backs against a particularly strong wave. Water rushed over her, wetting the ends of her hair. Jess’s solid form felt almost like a life raft as they turned again and finally made it to the calmer part of the water. 

“Because this is an exercise in adventure and spontaneity,” Jess answered finally, voice raised slightly over the noise as he repeated the words she’d spoken in the car yesterday verbatim. If they were going to California, it would be a crime to waste the chance to swim in the Pacific, she’d said. Above them, seagulls squawked in the cloudless sky. 

Ella had to admit, as scary as it was, dipping into the water felt an utterly refreshing break from the summer heat. Still, her hands shook with anxiety. “I’m plenty fucking adventurous.”

He chuckled. “And now _ this _ can be a reason why.”

She rolled her eyes, then glanced back to the shore, where their small pile of towels and other belongings looked small and insignificant. Sighing through her nose, she faced Jess again. “Doesn’t it seem like we’re really far out?”

“We’re not,” he said, shaking his head and gesturing to the other swimmers much closer to the flat horizon than they were. “It’s low tide, so it just seems far away, okay? Don’t worry.”

She raised a doubtful eyebrow.

They waded in the pristine blue water, deep enough for Ella to be unable to touch the seafloor. Jess could still stand if he tried, but it was a stretch. Instead, they floated over the constant waves, mounds of water which carried them up and deposited them back down over and over. At a particularly high peak, Ella, acting on instinct, wrapped her arms around Jess’s shoulders and hugged him tightly. 

A grin formed on his face as his arms wound around her, his heart practically jelly in his chest. He could count on one hand the amount of times Ella had allowed him to see her so vulnerable. It made him feel wanted, needed, in a way so foreign to him he had to bite his bottom lip to keep an astonished laugh from escaping him. When they were down near the bottom again, he ran a comforting hand up and down over her back, under the water. 

“Relax,” he repeated, more softly this time, close to her ear. “I’m right here.”

Sighing heavily, Ella nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’m relaxing.”

“I can see that.”

A petulant scowl crossed her face, but she released him from her strong grip. Their hands were still linked, but she began to gain her own bearings as the waves continued, slow and steady. Eventually, she was brave enough to submerge herself in the water, wetting her flushed face and frizzy hair. Jess’s own locks fell over his forehead boyishly, dripping on his cheeks. Ella smirked as she pushed it back and away from his face. 

“Look at you,” Jess said proudly as she finally let go of his hands, gliding over a wave on her own. “You’re halfway to  _ Blue Crush _ .”   
  


She snorted a laugh at his odd reference. “I was actually thinking more like  _ Splash _ . Always choose the mermaid over the surfer.”

“My mistake,” he said lightly. “Does that make me Tom Hanks?”

“In theory, but, in practice, you’re always James Dean.” 

. . .

Beachy decorations adorned nearly every inch of the walls in Jimmy’s house. The kitschiness charmed Ella immediately, as did Jimmy’s wife, Sasha. She had bleached blonde hair, cropped close to the head, and deep blue eyes radiating generosity. Upon arriving, she gave Ella a big hug, enveloping her in the scent of cinnamon. And Ella had to keep from raising her eyebrows in surprise when she saw Jimmy. He looked almost exactly like Jess, though the hair and the eyes were lighter, and he was slightly taller. It made far more sense to her why Jess looked nearly nothing like his mother. Lastly, Ella came to meet Lily when Jess opened the living room cupboard to reveal her sitting with her knees to her chest, reading. Ella could tell by the way no one else batted an eye that the habit of cabinet reading was not a one-time thing. The girl, around twelve, short and bespectacled with straight, mousy brown hair, reminded Ella almost of Rory. Though Lily radiated a peculiarity which Rory never had. It was welcome. Ella appreciated Lily’s confidence in her odd behavior, much the way she encouraged April’s long, winded rants about science or math. Weird girls were everywhere, just as Ella thought they should be. 

Heated and tired, Ella and Jess sat on one side of the ramshackle dining table, hands clasped underneath the surface, as they watched Sasha clear the dinner plates away and go to get the ice cream for dessert. Both Jess and Ella offered to do the dishes themselves, but Sasha would hear none of it. Instead, they sat with the other two of the house’s residents, in near-silence. The air was suddenly tense, Jimmy and Jess sharing a few charged looks between them. Without Sasha’s hospitable aura, there was nothing to keep them from facing each other for real. It was the first time they’d seen each other since Jess had been kicked out, and in-person was always so different from the phone. 

“Lil, did you finish that science poster you had due tomorrow?” Jimmy asked, Sasha having gotten up from the table at the tail end of a conversation about Lily’s interests in school.

Her nose was already buried back in her thick fantasy novel. She had picked it up from the ground next to her as soon as her mother left the room. Nodding, she gave a small grunt of confirmation, but didn’t look up.

Jess’s grip tightened slightly on Ella’s hand, and she could see his shoulders grow taut. He held onto her just as she had him as they drifted along the waves earlier in the day.

Clearing her throat, Ella ran her free hand through her hair and put on the most convincing smile she could muster. “So, Jess told me you’ve got a pretty cool record collection?”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been working on it for about twenty years.”

“Cool. I only have a couple dozen, but one day maybe I’ll have a whole shelf,” she said, grasping at straws to keep the conversation going. 

Jess said nothing; small talk had never been his forté. Especially with the man who had come into his life again eighteen years after abandoning him. But he was trying his best to keep his bitterness at bay, just as he had when he had lived there before. 

Chuckling under his breath, Jimmy leaned back in his chair. “That’s a nice thought, but it’ll cost a fortune if any of those records are worth a damn.”

“Yeah. Hopefully someday I’ll get there.”

“You sound just like me at your age. But I ended up with two hundred records and eighteen cents in my bank account. Math was never one of my strengths,” he replied, taking a sip of the white wine from the glass in front of him. 

Jess scoffed. “Eleanor has a college degree and no kids to flake on. I think she’ll be just fine.”

Narrowing his eyes just a touch at his son, Jimmy maintained an air of easy-going composure. He had his shirt untucked and one leg crossed over the other lazily. Though she tried to stop it, the word ‘slacker’ definitely came to Ella’s mind when she saw him, partially due to Jess’s influence, she knew. 

“And what about you? How’s Truncheon?” Jimmy asked. 

Jess shrugged.

“The Zine for this month should be coming out tomorrow. It looks great. There’s a lot of abstract stuff,” Ella chimed in, lamely, when she saw Jess wasn’t going to respond further. 

“Here’s hoping it’ll stay afloat,” Jimmy said. 

There was nothing malicious about his tone, nothing manipulative. She could see almost nothing of her own father in him. But Jimmy was a different breed of faulty fatherhood. No hope. Very little encouragement. Sasha took the reins with most of the dinner conversation. And Jimmy mostly added stories of his days spent homeless or in crappy housing out in Hollywood when he’d been scheming to become a musician. He spoke about the pointlessness of his dream. Of dreams in general. Ella thought his life seemed perfectly fine, even if managing some stand on the boardwalk wasn’t what he’d envisioned. But he was almost making himself more washed-up. And he saw Jess the way everyone in Stars Hollow had. In fact, he seemed to see Jess as himself. Maybe Jess being successful in his dreams was what drove the stand-offishness. Even with the compulsory invitation to visit and the monthly phone calls. Given the interactions she had witnessed, Ella wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been Sasha who forced Jimmy to play parent to his son after so long. 

“Here’s hoping,” Jess echoed, voice flat and face expressionless. 

Mercifully, Sasha then twirled back into the room with bowls of vanilla ice cream and questions for Ella about grad school. Jess retreated back into brooding silence while Ella rubbed circles on the back of his hand with her thumb. 

. . .

Taking a sharp intake of breath, Jess jerked awake. The air mattress on which they slept shifted and squeaked at his sudden movement. Ella, who Jess’s arm had been draped over, was jostled as well. He sighed quietly, reminding himself of where he was. Waiting a moment to change position, Jess thought Ella was still asleep. But, after a few more seconds, she stirred and her hazel eyes opened a crack. The open window in the spare room let in warm nighttime air, and the hum of cicadas was the only other sound in the house besides their breathing. 

“Go back to sleep,” Jess whispered hastily.

Instead, she lifted her head to look at him. His eyes shone in the moonlight and she could feel his slightly winded breathing. Sympathy washing over her face, she sat up despite his murmured protests. She ran a hand through his disheveled hair affectionately, then moved the back of her hand to his cheek. His face was reddish even in the low glow of the room, and his skin was warm. 

“You got a little sunburnt,” she said quietly, her voice groggy. Her touch was soft and gentle.

The small gesture of concern was enough to make Jess have to avert his gaze. His chest was tight with panic from a dream he didn’t even remember, and he didn’t trust his voice enough to speak again. Swallowing thickly, he stared out the window at the stars peeking through the wispy clouds, pale against the dark sky. 

Breathing a long breath through her nose and clearing her throat, she began stroking his hair again. “Did you have one of those dreams?”

He only nodded. While Ella slept heavily, could fall asleep anywhere, Jess almost never made it through a night without waking up at least once. Sometimes for no reason at all, but many times due to nightmares. Often he dreamed in hazy flashes which jolted him back to consciousness with feelings of dread and anxiety. As a teen, the only solution had been blasting loud music to get to sleep, a remedy he still wasn’t sure the cause of. With Ella at his side, though, he needed his headphones less and less. Not every time, but sometimes, she would wake up upon feeling his movements. Would stay up talking until he was finally lulled back to at least a doze. He would never wake her if she didn’t on her own, and always told her not to worry, to get back to bed, but she never did. Not until he did too. 

And it wasn’t as though she was surprised, or not used to it. The first time she’d found him breathless in the middle of the night, eyes embarrassed and full of fear, had been in high school. Only around the second or third time he’d slept over with her. The rest of the night was spent playing cards and discussing books. His cheeks had burned with shame the entire time, despite her constant reassurance. She didn’t mind at all. She still didn’t.

Ella followed his eyes out the window, where there was a view of the beach. The moon reflected against the water, and the shore was empty. “Hey. You wanna go for a walk?”

He furrowed his brows in silent questioning.

“There’s no one out there.  _ And  _ out there we won’t have the  _ Children of the Corn _ staring at us,” she said, gesturing to the strange artwork hanging on the wall above the desk. There were four drawings, each of a Victorian child with large, gaping eyes and a lifeless face.

Jess snickered half-heartedly, considering it for a moment. Then, he nodded again. Ella let a small smile across her face, standing up and throwing her simple black dress on again, with the flannel Jess had been wearing earlier over it. Though he felt shaky, Jess rose and tugged on his jeans and a t-shirt. Barefoot on the creaky wood floor, Ella took Jess’s hand and led him outside. He flinched away from the many dogs sleeping in the front yard. She pulled him through the garden and past the front gate quickly. 

The walk down to the sand was short and silent. Most of the time, after a nightmare, Jess didn’t want to talk. Ella hardly knew what he dreamed about. Instead, she would talk to him about her day, tell stories, list her favorite things, until his heart calmed and his eyes began to get heavy again. But, as they walked down to the beach, they both just took a moment to breathe in the surroundings. The houses painted ostentatious colors and the cheesy stands on the boardwalk. Palm trees rustled in the nighttime breeze, stronger as they got close to the ocean. Soon, the soft, cold sand was beneath their feet. Wordlessly, Jess took a seat on the beach a few feet up from the waves. Ella plopped down next to him, criss-cross applesauce with her hands resting behind her for support. She closed her eyes and listened to the ocean. The  _ whoosh _ of the water and the air. The smell of the sea and the slight chill of the wind. She didn’t love going in, but she certainly could understand the Pacific’s unique beauty. 

Taking in a deep breath, Jess stared down at his legs and tried to fight off the mixture of emotions churning in his stomach. He still felt ashamed every time he woke Ella up, though it was always accidental. And he couldn’t shake the sick uneasiness coursing through him. Whatever the dream had been, he was glad he couldn’t remember any specifics. 

“You okay?” she asked, opening her eyes again and facing him. Her long hair fell over her shoulder, unkempt. 

Looking out at the ocean, Jess smirked sharply. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she replied, nodding in understanding. 

The tenderness in her voice struck him, but he swallowed down the feeling. Another long silence passed between them, comfortable, before a thought occurred to Jess. His smirk was more genuine when he turned to her and undid the button on one of the breast pockets of the flannel she had thrown on. She tilted her head to him in askance, but her eyes lit up with realization as he pulled a small plastic bag and a lighter from the pocket. The shirt was baggy on her frame, and she hadn’t felt the weight of them with Jess in the forefront of her mind. 

“Where did that come from?” she asked, chuckling through her words. 

Jess shrugged, the lighter in one hand as he opened the bag, which held a small stash of marijuana and a pack of rolling papers. “I forgot this here when I went back to New York. And either I’m great at stashing things or daddy dearest is clueless, because it was still in the closet where I left it. I found it earlier when you were in the shower.”

Her eyebrows shot up, impressed. “It’s probably a little of both.”

“True,” he said, rolling a joint with deft fingers. “I’m the son of Liz Danes. And no one can hide drugs like that woman.”

Biting at her cheek, Ella took a long look at him. His profile was clear in the moonlight, strong and handsome. Stubble shadowed his cheeks and his hair, messy from sleep, fell into his eyes. There were moments, few and far between, when Jess let the pieces of his childhood slip out. Since meeting him, Ella had slowly begun to put the puzzle together. He almost never told her an outright story, or made a big deal of things which he should have. The drinking, the drugs, the boyfriends, the violence, the instability, financial and otherwise. His past wasn’t who he was, but it, in a way, made things click for her. Everyone had a story. Jess didn’t often share his, but it still affected him every day. Less and less now that he had a life of his own, but, on the rarest of occasions, Ella could see ghosts of the scared, lonely boy Jess had once been. A boy whose only defense had been sarcasm and only escape had been books. Her heart twisted in her chest as she watched him, but she said nothing. She only ran a hand up and down his back, and placed a kiss on his shoulder as he worked. He smiled a tiny smile, keeping his eyes on his hands. 

Soon, he had lit the joint and passed it to her. The tip glowed orange in the moonlight as she inhaled deeply, the familiar smell filling up her chest. She exhaled the smoke in a long stream, handing it back to hin. Neither she nor Jess were big on pot, not even in high school. The last time she’d smoked pot was the  _ first _ time Lane had. Hep Alien’s guitarist, Gil, owned a sandwich shop, and one of the shop guys grew pot in his basement. His stuff was pretty good, though Lane had gotten incredibly paranoid and sworn it off for good after the first few hits. 

“So, was California Jess a stoner, surfer type?” Ella asked, words snaking out from between her lips in clouds of smoke. Her mind was already beginning to buzz and smudge around the edges. A warm, pleasant tingling enveloped her legs.

Jess chuckled. “No. He was a leather-clad loser who didn’t graduate high school and owned nothing but a duffel bag full of books.”

Her expression fell, growing somber. “You weren’t a loser, Jess. You’re  _ not _ a loser.”

Scoffing, he passed the joint to her again. “ _ Right _ ...I just…”

Pausing, he sighed and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. Ella could see him struggling for his words, in a mood she couldn’t quite decipher. Part of it was the high, but part of it was something else completely.

“Even Luke kicked me out. And  _ you _ were going to college. I didn’t want to...I couldn’t stick around and keep you from anything,” he explained, head growing light with the influence of the drugs. “My mom didn’t want me, my uncle didn’t want me. No one wanted me there.”

Ella furrowed her brows and shook her head sadly, handing the joint his way again. “I wanted you.”

Breathing out shakily, he felt the joint begin to burn his fingers and stubbed it out against the cool sand. He drew his knees up to his chest and rested his elbows on them, hands clasped in front of him. Hiding his face with a bowed head, Jess tried to fight the tears which formed in his eyes. Coming back had brought memories he didn’t remember forgetting. Long nights filled with regret, unhappy days dealing with customers at the bookstore, uncomfortable family dinners where he could never really find his place despite how hard Sasha tried. The feeling of not belonging was so similar to the one he’d had in Stars Hollow. But, in Stars Hollow, New York was just a bus ride away, and Ella was just a walk down the road. Isolation took on a new meaning during his six months in California. 

Ella was surprised to hear him sniffle and see his form begin to tremble. She whispered his name, but got no response. After a moment of hesitation, she brought her arm around him, her head next his own as it rested on his shoulder. Shivering with his small sobs, Jess looked up again and let silent tears fall down his cheeks, though his skin flamed with shame. 

“And imagine my surprise when I got here and my dad was just as big a loser as me,” he said, breathing short, frustrated breaths. “But, he managed to get a new family anyway.”   
  


Sighing heavily, Ella pressed another kiss to his shoulder. “Jess, you’re not like him-”

“Oh, I’m not?” he asked doubtfully. 

“Absolutely not,” she said, a new firmness to her tone. “You wrote a book. You own a business. You were employee of the month at Walmart!”

He shook his head. 

“No, Mariano, I’m serious,” Ella continued, insistent. “You think Jimmy would ever be able to get employee of the month anywhere? Just because you didn’t love school doesn’t mean you’re not a hard worker. Jess, you’re the most passionate person I know.”

“Very funny, Stevens.”

“Believe me or not, it’s true. It’s just a fact. Your dad is a fucking idiot. But you’re not him.  _ You _ are intense and shy and funny and kind and so fucking smart, alright? You’re only 21 and you’ve already done more than he ever has. And I know it fucking sucks that he didn’t grow up in time for you, but that wasn’t  _ because _ of you. In  _ spite _ of all that, you still manage to be you,” she said, her voice soft but ardent. The words spilled out of her mouth in a fervent rush, her mind loose and clear and high. “He really fucking missed out. Because he doesn’t know you.”

Jess could feel her voice rumble in her chest against his arm as she leaned on him, holding him. And he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He didn’t know what to say. The emotions bubbling up from beneath the surface muted his words. He stared out at the waves again, and a reluctant smirk formed on his face after a moment, though his cheeks were still damp. 

“Haven’t heard you go all motivational speaker in a while,” he said, voice watery but smug. 

She let giggle escape her lips and straightened up slightly. Wiping away his tears with her thumb and kissing the top of his hair, she drew his head to her shoulder. “Yeah, well, desperate times.”

“Thank you, Eleanor,” he murmured, noticing how the sky had begun to lighten to a soft bluish gray. 

“Don’t mention it,” she replied. 

And they sat on the sand, sheltered in their embrace against the wind, into the early hours of the morning as the sun rose over the ocean. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This one had a lot of stuff happen so please let me know what you thought!!! Hope everyone is doing okay and staying safe! <3


	29. Andy Warhol Arguments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella feels the stress of her new life in Philadelphia.

Rubbing at his eyes, Jess shut the alarm clock off and furrowed his brows when he saw Ella wasn’t next to him. Her side of the bed was cold and didn’t look nearly as disheveled. But the anxiety at her absence quickly subsided as he walked out into the living room. With papers strewn around on the coffee table in front of her, Ella had spread out on the couch with no blanket, despite the Autumn chill in the air. She was still in her dress from the day before, and it was twisted around her form, riding up her thighs. Mascara was smudged around her eyes. Jess smirked, then went over and began shaking her shoulder gently. The light was soft through the gray curtains, and the sky was overcast. Even still, she squinted as she stirred awake, confused at her location. 

“Elle? Wake up,” Jess said, coaxing her out of her groggy state. “Jeez, how late did you stay up?”

She sighed, sitting up and gathering herself. “I don’t know. I was grading essays for at least a couple more hours after you went to bed. But I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I was just gonna rest for a little while. Obviously, that was naive of me.”

He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her cheek before going to put on the tea and coffee in the kitchen. 

“What time is it?” she asked, stretching her arms high over her head as she stood up, her skirt falling around her knees again. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to wake herself up and shake off the throb pulsing behind her eyes. 

“Seven,” Jess replied, filling the coffee pot up with water. 

Ella nodded, relieved. Her first class wasn’t until nine. At least she would have time to shower off her makeup from the day before, and brush her teeth. The taste in her mouth made her grimace; she couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep without brushing her teeth. It was almost time for midterms at school, and the students in the art history class she was a teacher’s assistant for had just turned in their first major essays. Overall, they were pretty decent. But, she was also never one to shy away from the red pen. Shuffling the stacks of paper on the table into neat rectangles, she stifled a yawn. 

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said, coming to lean against the island. “I’d probably scare the undergrads if I showed up like this. Thanks for waking me. I would’ve slept forever if I could.”

“I know.” Jess turned on the tea kettle and faced her. “You gotta take it a little easier. I think that vein in your forehead is bound to pop, the way things are going.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, Mariano. The concern is appreciated but not necessary.”

“You’ve slept a total of, like, seven hours in the past three days,” he argued.

“Hypocrite,” she scoffed, making for their bedroom again to get fresh clothes. 

“Nihilist,” Jess retorted, calling after her. He would’ve worried about the volume of his voice so early in the morning, but he could already hear Matthew and Chris talking through the walls. 

Ella chuckled breathily, half-heartedly. “I’m not the one who hung Nietzche above our bed.”

. . .

Despite Ella’s time at Luke’s, she had never mastered making breakfast. Or cooking in general. Baking came natural and easy, her pies a hit at every single holiday and gathering she brought them to. But she burned the toast, didn’t fry the bacon long enough, couldn’t get the pancakes just right. Jess, however, had somehow picked up cooking skills between sighs and snide remarks. He and Chris took turns making breakfast sometimes, when everyone didn’t just resort to cereal. It was common knowledge in the apartment, though, that both Ella and Matthew were best away from the kitchen in the morning hours. 

As Ella reemerged from the bedroom, her hair damp and braided, her simple black dress loose and comfortable, the smell of the scrambled eggs Jess was making hit her in the face. Pepper and butter and orange juice mixed in, Chris on the couch flipping through the news channels on the TV sat opposite, Matthew at the counter talking with Jess. With everyone up so early, it made sense Jess would make something. She wondered sometimes if it was nostalgia which drove him, serving them food as Luke did his customers. And, of course, he lived above the business he owned just like his uncle. Ella had pointed out the irony to him more than once. After all, Ella knew just how much Jess looked up to Luke, even if he would never admit it in so many words. 

Her stomach did a flip instead of growling as it usually would have, as the ache in her head pounded with the beat of her heart. It made her want to sigh audibly, but she bit it back. The only silver lining of the morning had been not bleeding through her dress and onto the couch, her period having shown up at some point in the night. Cramps were already twisting her insides, nauseating her. 

“Did you hear what Bush did last night?” Chris asked, head perking up when he saw her enter the room. He held a coffee in one hand, the liquid pale from copious amounts of milk and sugar. 

“Please don’t tell me,” she said tiredly, hopping onto a stool next to Matthew. “I can’t handle his idiocy this morning.”

“I’ll spare you, then.”

“Thank you so much.”

Matthew chuckled breathily at them, sipping from his own mug. He was clean-shaven again, having stayed at the apartment for the first time in several days. Still, they did not know the name of the mysterious girlfriend. 

“He’s never that nice to me,” Matthew said, his words a joking sigh. 

Ella shrugged. “He owes me for covering his ass when he pissed off that spoken word lady last week.”

“Not my fault,” Chris chimed in from the couch, defensive.

“Right, so when you told her she wasn’t as important as the other woman, that wasn’t your fault? Someone else said that?” Ella prodded, eyebrows raised skeptically.

Chris sighed heavily. “I didn’t say that. She just heard me wrong.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Ella chided. 

Scoffing, Chris turned his eyes back to the TV and said nothing more. Ella snorted at his petulance, facing ahead where Jess stood over the stove. With a spatula in one hand and the handle of a frying pan in the other, she was reminded again of their days at the diner. Of a lonely morning when Luke had an appointment and Ella had gotten into a fight with her father. It was the first time Jess had made her breakfast. A wistful look crossed her face, and she was lost in thought when Jess put her tea down in a mug in front of her. 

“Earth to Eleanor,” he said, waving a hand in front of her face. “What, thinking about Emily Dickinson again?”

“Close, but no,” she replied, blinking herself out of her daze and taking the mug with both hands. She blew steam from the top and shot him a small smile. “Thanks, cutie.”

Rolling his eyes, Jess went back to the stove with a flushed face. He didn’t have to look back over to know she had a teasing grin on her lips. Since their ride to California, she’d been poking at him with the nickname. He thought she would let it go, but then he remembered who he was dealing with. And though he wouldn’t admit it, as he blushed, it was growing on him just a touch. Besides, he knew it was due retaliation for ‘honey,’ which he still used on a daily basis.

“You want toast with these eggs?” he asked, hoping his face would cool down sometime soon.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella shook her hand. “No thanks, actually, I’m good without either. Just tea is fine.”

Jess’s brows furrowed immediately and he looked up from his work, tilting his head at her. “Really? You sure?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not hungry.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. Getting a good look at her, he thought she was paler than normal, though it could have just been his imagination. Lack of sleep probably wasn’t  _ helping _ her pallor, anyway. 

“You might be hungry later.”

“Well, I’ll come back here for lunch. Four hours isn’t so long,” she said, her tone light against his puzzled gaze. 

“Okay, Stevens,” he said suspiciously, but then let the subject drop. It was strange for her to skip breakfast, sure. But it was also strange for her to stay up half the night grading papers; perhaps she was just having an off day. 

Her eyes lingered on his a little longer, but she kept her emotions masked beneath a complacent smile. Eventually, Jess focused back on the eggs which he was apparently making for himself. Matthew had a plate in front of him, and Chris had already scarfed his down. 

“Oh my god, guys,” Chris piped up from the couch again. 

Ella suppressed a groan; he updated them on various happenings from the news every single morning. The information was rarely relevant to anything. 

“What?” Jess asked flatly, putting the eggs on his own plate and setting them down across the counter from Ella. He leaned against the tiled surface as he ate. 

“There’s like three people in Berkeley with mad cow disease,” Chris answered, a shocked look on his face. Ella had no idea how he kept up so much energy, and could be so consistently amazed at the world around him. It was a little exhausting, but endearing nonetheless. 

She scoffed. “Good thing I couldn’t afford it, then.”

Jess nodded knowingly as he chewed.

“What?” Matthew asked. 

“Oh,” Ella said casually, taking another sip of the tea. She wished it was green, but Jess would almost certainly have more questions for her, about whether she was getting a migraine, if she drank that. Already, she could see him trying to get her to stay home. And she simply couldn’t flake so close to mid-terms. “When I was a kid, I always wanted to go to Berkeley. Maybe because it was the farthest place I could think of. But I’d never been there. And after finally making it to California, I’d say it’s a good thing the tuition was too insane for me to handle.”

A bark of a laugh came from Chris. “Yeah, you’re too pretentious for anything but the East coast.”

“I am _ not _ ,” she retorted, not even turning around to face him again. “Maybe I’m just too much of a realist for that hippie bullshit.”

“More like a stick-up-your-ass killjoy, but sure, I guess realist is another way to put it,” Chris said, with self-satisfied lilt in his tone.

“Fuck off,” she shot back lazily. Both Jess and Matthew watched on in amusement, as they had grown accustomed to doing, while she continued. “You’re just pissed you’re not deep enough to understand true art. All you can wrap your brain around is ABBA and Andy Warhol.”

“Andy Warhol was an American treasure!”

Ella finally turned around to see Chris shooting daggers at her. “Andy Warhol was a sellout! I have a whole book about him; you can borrow it!”

“Oh, well, if a book says so,” Chris mocked, feigning belief. 

She laughed. “It’s too early and there’s just not enough time for me to explain to you how wrong you are. I gotta get to class. Professor Stanton wants me to go over her presentation with her before.”

Getting down off the stool, she rushed behind the counter and gave Jess a long kiss goodbye. Her feet felt heavy in her black oxfords as she went over to the door, donning her peacoat from the rusty rack and grabbing her bag.

“See you for lunch at noon?” she asked, throwing one last look at Jess. 

He nodded, gave her a reassuring smile. She seemed frazzled and uneasy. “I’ll be here, Daria.”

“Just checking, James Dean.”

“Bye, Ella,” Matthew said. 

Ella gave him a little wave and rolled her eyes when Chris was silent from the couch, pouting over her slight to his god, Andy Warhol. “Fuck you very much, Chris.”

He yelled an cheerful obscenity back to her as she raced out the door, the old bronze clock down in the main room of Truncheon chiming half past eight. 

. . .

By lunch, her headache had progressed to a full-on migraine, but she still had one more class and office hours to attend to, so she was pressing on. The day was chilly, a faint drizzle misting her as she trudged up the sidewalk back to Truncheon. She made a note to herself to grab an umbrella before leaving again; at least it hadn’t started pouring on her walk. Her old shoulder bag was dragging on her tired frame, packed to the brim with books and papers. The green fabric was faded to almost gray, as she had been lugging the bag around since high school. But it had yet to rip or fray, and she’d added a few patches to the front at some point during college. What wasn’t broken, she didn’t intend trying to fix. Why waste the time?

She was glad to be met with the familiar smell of old books as she reentered the small publishing company. Matthew was reorganizing shelves to his preference, silent and analytical. Hanging her bag and coat on the hook by the door, she ran her hands up and down over her own arms in an attempt to warm up. The tights she wore were thin and cheap. Chris was nowhere to be seen, which Ella was almost grateful for. As much as she enjoyed the two guys, Jess was the only one she wanted in the moment. And though what she  _ really  _ wanted was to lean her head on his shoulder and fall asleep, an hour for lunch up in the apartment, as they had every day, would have to do. 

Sluggish as she ascended the stairs, Ella felt a gnawing hunger in her stomach, but was nervous to eat. With the cramps ripping up her insides, she knew whatever she downed might just come back up. Jess was already upstairs, reading at the counter, when she opened the door to the apartment, and he looked up with a tiny smirk as she walked in. 

“Hey, Daria,” he said, marking the place in his book and tossing it aside. 

She shot him a weak smile of greeting and made for the fridge, scanning the various homemade leftovers and takeout boxes. Jess came up behind her, peering in over her shoulder. At his closeness and his aroma of pine, she breathed a sigh of relief and stopped what she was doing. Just having him near made her feel better instantly, knowing she would come home to him at the end of the day. A mixture of emotions welled inside her, rising up in her throat. Shutting the fridge door and spinning around to face him, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and enveloped him in an embrace. His arms twined around her waist instinctively, but he let out a surprised chuckle.

“Hey.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt and when she pulled away, Jess thought he saw a fond sorrow in her eyes. She pressed a kiss to his lips. 

He tilted his head at her when their lips were separated again. “What was that for?”

Ella shrugged. “No reason.”

Soon, they sat next to each other at the island with a container of cold lo mein split on two plates in front of them. Breaking the comfortable silence, Jess set his fork down and turned to her, a hesitant look on his face. He had held off telling her as long as he could stand; he could rant about it forever, but still didn’t want to say a word.

“Liz called me earlier,” he began, watching her glance up from her plate, where she pushed her food around, noncommittal. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Um...she’s pregnant.” Jess ran a hand over his mouth and sighed lightly. 

Her eyes perked up in surprise. “ _ What? _ ”

“Unfortunately, it seems TJ’s incompetence in everything else didn’t extend to his reproductive skills.”

She snorted a half-hearted laugh and trained her eyes on him carefully. “Are you okay?”

He nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, chatty Kathy,” she said, taking a sip of her water and then facing him fully. “But, how do you feel about it?”

“Honestly, Elle?” he asked, his tone dejected. He didn’t quite meet her gaze. “I don’t know. Jimmy’s got a stepdaughter. Now, Liz is gonna have a new kid. It’s...I don’t know. I just hope she doesn’t binge-drink quite as much as she did with me.”

Ella furrowed her brows. 

“I was five weeks early and I weighed something like four pounds. She says she doesn’t remember most of being pregnant,” Jess explained, a bitter tinge to his words. 

“Jesus Christ,” Ella muttered, shaking her head slightly, not in disbelief but in simple sadness for him. 

Jess shrugged dismissively. “But, hey, now she’s gonna get a second try. I’m sure the next one won’t be as much trouble as I was.”

“Hey,” she said firmly, bringing a cold hand to his cheek, stroking his skin affectionately with her thumb, “it was  _ her _ fucking fault.”

“I know,” he said quietly, suddenly struck by her blunt tenderness. It filled him up, but made his insides flutter. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

“Alright,” she whispered, waiting a moment longer before she dropped her hand back from his face. “But if you do-”

“I know,” he repeated, light to disguise the pit in his stomach.

“Good.” 

. . .

Bowie played softly on the record player and Ella sat up against the wall behind the bed. She was still in her black cotton dress, though she had let her hair down from its braid, hoping to relieve some of the pressure behind her temples. A dull ache was constant in her lower stomach, occasionally tightening to a sharp burst of pain. Her breath was slow and steady, as she hoped to relax her muscles. She wrote against the thick stack of paper in her lap, only a few essays left. Maybe she could actually get a chance to sleep a sensible amount. She’d been at it since the moment she got upstairs at three in the afternoon, and her eyes were dry and hot in her skull. Rain pattered against the window on her left, the pane fogged up from the cold day.

A creak sounded in the room as the door opened, and she peeked down at her watch. It was nearly six; she hadn’t realized how much time she’d spent sitting in the same position, staring at the endless pages of Times New Roman. Jess walked in with socked feet, a crease of concern between his brows as he strode over to the bed. 

“Hey, you almost done?” he asked, sitting down on the end and running his hand up and down the back of her calf.

She bit the inside of her cheek as she finished scribbling a comment on the side of a page. Then, she looked up at him with an exhausted, pale face. “Sort of. I’ve still got a few to go.”

“Why don’t you take a break?” Jess asked. When their work day had ended at five-thirty, he’d come up to find her pouring over the assignments. It was clear she was concentrating hard, and he’d silently come over and placed a kiss on her forehead in greeting before leaving her to her work. The worry had not left him in the hour he’d been sitting on the couch with a Barker novel in his hands and an old sitcom on the TV. “We ordered pizza. Half mushroom.”

A smile formed on her lips, less strained than it had looked all day. Mushroom was her favorite on pizza. “Maybe in a little while. I don’t finish what I need to, and they could definitely replace me with another TA.”

Jess scoffed in disbelief at her unfounded fear. “Where else are they gonna find a Lily Briscoe nihilist who dresses like it’s 1994?”

“Same place they’d find another Kerouac wannabe who knows close-up magic tricks,” she quipped coolly, going back to her work. Her patience was wearing. No matter how much her mind was screaming for a reprieve, she simply needed to finish. Some strong fire burned within her, forcing her to be productive or suffer intense guilt. 

He gasped in mock offense. “Low blow, Stevens. The magic phase was not my best, I will admit. But, it was really only to impress a certain waitress.”

“Well, when you talk to her, tell her I think she should raise her standards,” Ella replied, not looking up from the paper.

Jess sighed in frustration, taking his hand from her leg. When she got into her working zone, one he recognized well from high school, it certainly took some effort to get her out. But rarely was she quite so irritated. “You’ve barely eaten anything all day, Eleanor.”

“Didn’t realize I was under surveillance, Jess.”

Rising from the bed again, Jess rolled his eyes. “The pizza’s gonna be here in fifteen minutes. You don’t come out, and I’ll tell Chris how much you hate jazz. You’ll have to face his wrath.”

“I think I can handle him,” Ella said flatly. Still, she didn’t lift her eyes from the writing.

“You’ve been warned,” Jess chagrined, shutting the door behind him gently.

. . .

The growling of her stomach ultimately forced her out of the bed, the stack of papers left on the nightstand with the red pen neatly atop it. She decided she didn’t need anymore arguing with Chris for the day. And the hungrier she got, the worse her headache was. Searing pain radiated all the way through her brain, but she tried to quiet it the best she could. She hadn’t experienced a migraine in a long while, but remembered how to power through it. It was better to at least attempt to eat, she decided. She hated the odd dichotomy of the nauseating cramps and the intense hunger.

A smug smirk formed on Jess’s face when she opened the door, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. 

“Oh, look. Judas,” Chris said from his spot in the armchair, still offended from the morning’s Andry Warhol argument.

“Not my fault you can’t handle the truth,” she replied, going over to the fridge and grabbing a ginger ale. She didn’t know whether the ginger ale soothing stomach trick worked with period cramps, but it was worth a shot. She popped it open and took a few sips before placing it on the end table near the windows and flopping down on the weathered green couch next to Jess. 

“Your stomach okay?” he asked, an eyebrow raised at her choice of drink. 

She shrugged dismissively, her face wan. “I’m fine, Mariano.”

“You sure you’re not pregnant?” Chris teased, glancing at Jess. “Apparently it’s in the water.”

Jess swallowed dryly at the reference to his mother’s news. Both Matthew and Chris had overheard snippets of the phone conversation.

“Believe me, I’m not,” Ella answered, running her hand through her hair and sweeping it over one shoulder. The back of her neck was hot beneath it.

“But how could you know?” Chris continued, a mocking twinkle in his blue eyes.

As she shot him a withering stare, Ella’s lips turned up in a thin, sardonic smile. Her tone was cold and venomous. “One guess. I’m sure it’ll come to you, Einstein.”

After a moment with furrowed brows, realization crossed his features and his eyes widened. Chris blushed and said nothing more. Jess snickered at him and brought an arm around Ella, unphased.

Goosebumps rose on her skin at his touch, as she leaned her head on his shoulder. A slight sigh escaped her lips as she allowed herself to slacken against him, seeing the  _ Frasier _ rerun playing on the grainy television across from them. Matthew sat on Jess’s other side, working on something which looked like an inventory sheet. She could certainly identify with his workaholic side. He leaned over and told her the pizza would be there any minute. Nodding, she put a hand on her anxious stomach and shut her eyes. She hadn’t felt the fatigue weighing her down fully until she gave into it, suddenly worried she could fall asleep at any moment. 

Jess looked down at her, a crease of concern reappearing between his brows. Frowning, he took in her flushed face and placed his hand to her forehead. Though he couldn’t be sure, he thought she seemed feverish. “You feel warm.”

“The heat’s on. Our room is stuffy. I’ve been in there a few hours. Really, cutie, I’m just tired,” she said shortly, not opening her eyes and shifting to get more comfortable. His skin was cool against hers. It wouldn’t have surprised her if she was running a slight temperature. Sleep deprivation and her period both sometimes caused a tiny fever for her separately; it would be less than a shock if together they’d had a bit of an effect.

His eyes lingered on her doubtfully, but a knock then sounded on the door. Jess dug in his pocket with a free hand to find a few crumpled bills, handing them to Matthew, who went to greet the pizza guy. In a few minutes, they were back in their respective spots with grease-splotched paper towels, holding cheap pizza. Matthew and Chris were deep in a debate about the acts to book for the following week, and were throwing around the idea of an open mic night. Jess didn’t have much to say on the matter, instead watching as Ella ventured a few bites of her slice and kept her eyes on the TV, trying to ignore his watchful gaze. Not even Luke had ever been so concerned over her well-being, insofar as whether she had something she could potentially spread to customers. Only her mother stuck out as a caregiver in her life, and of course, no time in recent memory. It was just Jess. 

“You’re staring, Romeo,” she snapped after a while, realizing he wasn’t going to quit.

“Thought I was a Mercutio?” he asked through a mouthful of pizza.

Scoffing, annoyed, Ella felt the mixture of both hunger and discomfort mingling in her stomach again. “Not tonight. Remember how much Romeo stared?”

“It rings a bell. But I also haven’t read that since ninth grade English.”

“You did reading for school?” she asked doubtfully, snorting a laugh.

He nodded. “I had gold stars plastered all over my forehead.”

“Oh, yeah, I can just picture it,” she said, taking another bite, almost finished with her piece. “ _ Romeo and Juliet  _ sucks anyway.”

“Once again,” he said, shaking his head at her in feigned disappointment, “so blasphemous.”

“And still, you can’t keep your eyes off me.” 

He shrugged. “Sad but true.”

She chuckled, about to retort in the easy way she always could, but instead there was a shift in her features. Her freckled cheeks drained completely and tinged to a slight green. Saying nothing, she put the back of a hand to her mouth and she hopped up, rushing towards the bathroom. Not running, but definitely rushing. Her movements were silent but swift as she shut the door behind her with a  _ slam _ . Chris and Matthew didn’t even notice until the sound rang out in the apartment. Jess sighed heavily, going after her. Pressed up against the door, he could hear her gagging. 

“Eleanor?” he asked, knocking.

Knees grounded on the blue tile of the bathroom floor, Ella found she couldn’t reply through her breathless retching, bent over the toilet bowl. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and her nose began to run.

“I’m coming in,” Jess said resolutely. 

Ella would’ve cursed at herself if she’d been able, realizing she had forgotten to lock the door in her race to make it to the toilet. Before she could protest, Jess took her hair in one hand and began rubbing circles on her back with the other. His touch was deliberate and gentle, and almost made her want to cry harder than she already was, her entire body radiating embarrassment. 

“Fuck, Jess, get out,” she pleaded through bouts of vomiting. “I’m  _ fine _ .”

“Yeah, I can see that, Linda Blair,” he deadpanned, not moving from his spot. 

Eventually, the swirling in her stomach stopped, and her breathing became regular again. She flushed and immediately went to the sink to splash cold water on her face, rinsing her mouth out and brushing her teeth thoroughly. Jess watched carefully from where he sat on the edge of the blue tub. She wiped her face with the hand towel and threw it back down next to the sink in frustration. Her body was strained and tired, and she sat down heavily next to him when she was finished. She brought her elbows to her knees, holding her chin in her hands. 

“You okay?” Jess asked, tucking some hair behind her ear to expose her cheek. He pressed the back of his hand against it, noting how hot she still was. The puking probably hadn’t helped, though. 

She cleared her throat. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing for you to be sorry over,” he replied lightly. “I mean  _ I’m _ sorry for getting on you about not eating. I just thought you were working through meals like you used to in high school. I didn’t know you felt sick.”

“I’m not sick, Jess.”

“Eleanor, you were just puking your guts out like two minutes ago,” he said, eyebrows raised. “And I’m pretty sure you have a fever.”

Ella sighed, sniffling though the tears had stopped involuntarily streaming down her cheeks. “When I was a kid, I used to run a temperature when I didn’t sleep enough. And the whole  _ Exorcist _ routine is because of my period.”

“Really? Usually, you seem like you feel okay when you’re on your period.”

She chuckled. Most of the time, they had sex every night when she was on her period. The hormones were often a pleasant experience in her case. Such bad cramps hadn’t afflicted her since before she’d started the pill at age fifteen, either. “I usually hardly even have cramps. But I got on new birth control this month and stress can also make things way worse. Sleep deprivation, too. I don’t know. The perfect storm.”

His face softened sympathetically. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re insane.”

“Oh, well how could I  _ possibly _ take  _ that _ the wrong way?” she quipped through slight laughter.

“You’re working so hard, you’re  _ literally  _ making yourself sick,” he explained. “Not that you’re gonna listen to me, but I really think you should ease up if you don’t wanna have a stroke before you’re thirty.”

Again, she sighed, straightening up and averting her gaze. “I just...if I’m working as hard as I can, I’m not worrying as much about losing my spot in the graduate program.”

“Why would you lose your spot?” he asked, his brow crinkling. Maybe he shouldn’t have laughed her off so easily before.

“I don’t know. I just worry about it. Anything’s possible,” she said.

And he could see her mind was off somewhere other than Philadelphia. It was back in Stars Hollow, on the night when her mother had died and she’d lost everything out of the blue. Pieces fell into place, and all of a sudden he understood. Why she had been staying up late and editing papers more heavily than she needed to and running herself ragged only halfway through the semester. To Eleanor, nothing was permanent, nothing could be counted on. The feeling wasn’t lost on him, considering he had a new fake daddy pretty much every year as a child, but he hadn’t even seen a semblance of stability in his life until moving to Luke’s. He remembered how different it was not having to worry about losing the apartment for unpaid rent or having all of his possessions stolen by some deadbeat his mother had inexplicably allowed into their lives. But Ella had lived in a home that had a least a decent amount of security for fourteen years before the rug was pulled out from under her. That was the difference, and it was an important one. 

“Elle?”

“Hm?” She lifted her eyes, slightly glassy, up to his.

“No matter what happens with this grad school thing, or after, anything is  _ not _ possible with me,” he said in earnest. “Because I was yours the first time I saw you five years ago. At this point, I can say with complete certainty that’s never gonna change.”

Breathing out a long breath through her nose, Ella couldn’t help the smile which bloomed on her face. Before, he’d said he fell in love with her that night in the gazebo. Maybe he had been holding back so he wouldn’t scare her, though the time he’d asked her to run away with him and told her he loved her hadn’t exactly been his most restrained moment. She didn’t know. And, the idea that it had actually been the minute when they’d met all those years ago in the diner was so preposterous in her realist mind, she had to tease him at least a little. “Love at first sight, huh? Time has really made you soft, Mariano. The Hemingway, too.”

“I’m serious, Stevens,” he continued, though a smirk tugged at his own lips. “And, for the record, there’s no way in hell they’re gonna kick you out of that program. They’re lucky you even accepted their offer. Please, just take a fucking sick day tomorrow. Watch Stephen King, and drink green tea, and eat peanut butter out of the jar.”

A moment passed between them, and finally she gave a slow nod. “Fine. But only because you asked so nicely. And because this is the most disgusting I’ve felt since that time I drank my dad’s tequila.”

He chuckled, bringing an arm around her shoulder and pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. “Good. By tomorrow night, you’ll feel like one of the living again.”

Leaning into his side again, she was so utterly relieved. A weight she didn’t know she had been carrying lifted from within her. The nerves and the worry weren’t gone, but for the first time, perhaps ever, she truly believed Jess. She trusted him so completely it shocked her. They weren’t the same people they had been when he’d run away to California. But they still fit together exactly right. And it wasn’t going to change. She pulled away from him, placing a hand on the back of his neck and running her fingers through the ends of his hair affectionately.

“I love you.”

For a moment, Jess’s breath caught in his throat and he thought his heart would explode from joy. But, instead, his grin grew more genuine. “That’s nice, but I kinda figured.”

She rolled her eyes, giving his shoulder a playful shove. “Such a jackass.”

“So I’ve heard,” he replied easily, then took her hand in his and squeezed it. “I love you too.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated!


	30. Grinches at Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella spend Christmas in Philadelphia with their roommates.

Cloves. Ella’s father hated cloves, and she always avoided putting them into her holiday pies. But, it was to be a Philadelphia Christmas. And she could put as much clove into her pumpkin pies as she wanted. There was little to no word from her father, and no word directly to her. She heard through Fiona he was spending the holiday with his brother, Ella’s least favorite uncle, down in Florida with some friends. The news was fitting, but made Ella want to grimace. Sticky air and packed with tourists. If she didn’t like California, she couldn’t imagine how much she would hate Florida. The plan had been for her to go back to Stars Hollow to spend the time with Fiona and Adam, but they ended up making arrangements of their own. Adam was flying out to Oregon to be with Noah and his fiancé. Ella had been invited, but decided it wasn’t worth the expense. Upon hearing she may be left in a house alone, with the prospect of Jess and Ella perhaps visiting, Fiona decided to spend the final two weeks of December visiting her sister.

It was strange; freeing, but strange. Not having to go home for Christmas felt almost too adult. Even after moving to Lane’s, she would at least make an appearance at the family dinner. And, of course, there was her Aunt Julie. But they usually spent Thanksgiving in Connecticut and Christmas visiting her husband’s family in Ohio. Liz and Luke, too, had already planned to spend Thanksgiving together in Stars Hollow. Jess was off the hook, as he put it. Literally no one was left. No one, and no obligation. And a whole month off for winter break from UPenn. 

Without pay from being a teacher’s assistant, Ella had begun creating more art to sell at Truncheon, as well as working a few shifts at the flower shop down the street each week. It wasn’t hard work, but the sight of poinsettias would never be the same. Days off were spent anxiously crafting gifts, drawing, and baking. 

Truncheon was set to close for the week of Christmas and New Year’s, then begin 2006 with a whole list of one-woman and one-man shows. Ella didn’t have to ask to know the business was doing decently (though maybe the feeling was exaggerated for her, since she had spent the past two years living on a couch with little more than a car full of junk to her name), not even considering how she’d sold all of the sketches Jess had hung up for the Open House and then some. Except the Hudson River. That one would permanently remain ‘Not For Sale.’ 

Jess sat at the counter, reading as usual, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Chris, Matthew, and Chris’s boyfriend Leo were out shopping together, gathering cheap, last-minute presents. None of them were religious in any way. Mostly, they were ‘celebrating’ Christmas for the food. When Ella realized she had no place she was required to be, she had debated skipping everything. Just hanging out with Jess and ignoring the fanfare around her. But she decided she could deal with the organized religion bullshit for a day if it meant giving Jess the gift she had spent a month making. 

The thought of it made her bite her cheek, hiding a smile. She stirred various spices in with the puree of pumpkin, liquidy from the condensed milk she’d added. The smell of it gave her a warm feeling, which was almost out of place. The baking, she always enjoyed. But actual excitement for a holiday? She hadn’t experienced that so purely since before her mother died. Instead, she found herself dreading the family obligations and awkward reunions. And eventually retreating to Luke’s to commiserate. Having Jess there had just been an added bonus to the general Scrooge attitude of the diner staff. 

Ella came around the counter with the soupy orange filling on her spoon, giving it a taste before holding it out to Jess. She thought it might need more cinnamon, but also felt she might be too close to the situation. She needed an outside tongue’s perspective. He looked up from his book at her proximity and rolled his eyes. 

“Have you ever considered baking the pie before eating it?” he asked. She’d made him try the apple and pecan filling as well. 

“Have you ever considered:  _ bite me _ ?” she retorted flatly, inching the spoon closer to his mouth.

He sighed, shutting his Palahniuk book, borrowed from Ella’s collection and covered with their handwriting from high school. Tasting the pie filling, he nodded. Amazing, as it always was. But her perfectionism knew no bounds. 

“It’s good, Elle. I like the cloves.”

“See? The cloves are what make it complete!” she replied in agreement. “My fucking dad never let me add the cloves. Does it need more cinnamon?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Daria,” he said emphatically, hoping to convince her, as he shook his head a little. “Just relax. It’s just gonna be the five of us. Everyone will love them.”

She rolled her eyes, tossing the wooden spoon down on the counter next to them. “You sure you’re not just saying that?”

Jess scoffed, bringing his hands to her waist. “I would never.”

“Oh, of course not,” she replied, feigning agreement with eyebrows raised. She put her arms around his shoulders. “Are you not worried about cooking dinner? How can you not be worried about that?”

“No. Because I’ve been eating shitty takeout with Chris and Matthew for over a year. Any real food at all is gonna blow their mind,” he chuckled. The supplies for the turkey he was making the following day were packed to the brim in the fridge. “Seriously, Stevens. Just relax. We’re gonna get to be grinches in the comfort of our own home this year.”

His words struck a chord with her.  _ Our own home _ . Moving into the apartment after the three of them had already lived together for so long, after the three of them had created a business together, she couldn’t help feeling like a bit of an interloper. Slowly, very slowly, she was getting comfortable. Playing her records in the mornings, sketching on the couch on her days off, decorating their bedroom with a few of her things. Jess didn’t mind. She was the artist. The decor was infinitely better after her intervention. She hadn’t felt as though she belonged, actually belonged, in a very long time. In her own home, she was just a reminder of her dead mother. At Lane’s, despite how long she had ended up staying there, she was little more than a couch surfer. But, in Philadelphia, she had a place. She had a side of the bed. 

Letting a small smile tug at the corners of her lips, she nodded. “That we are, cutie.”

He uttered a bashful laugh at the nickname, and she leaned down to kiss him on the lips. They had the place to themselves, and things began to get heated. Ella ended up on Jess’s lap, running her hands through his hair as they made out. His hands traveled lower, and she was reminded of hazy afternoons on Luke’s couch. When he had first let his fingers slip beneath her skirt. The kitchen timer clicked out the seconds, the smell of apple pie filling the room. Sirens and the other traffic were faint noises in the distance beyond the four walls which enclosed them. Her body lit up with pleasant tingles, warmth in her stomach and her heart.  _ Home _ . The word echoed in her head once more.

But they were interrupted as Chris, Matthew, and Leo burst through the door, shopping bags nearly spilling from their arms. At the sudden noise of their arrival, Ella pulled away from Jess, their lips breaking apart with a  _ smack! _ But she didn’t bother jumping off his lap. The damage was done; they had definitely seen what was going on.

“Ugh, Jesus, guys!” Chris exclaimed. “Please don’t go all  _ From Here to Eternity _ in the kitchen!”

Ella sighed, hiding her flaming face in Jess’s shoulder as his frame shook with laughter. Sure, he was the shy one. But she had always been more sheepish about open PDA. Jess never had a problem with it (Ella remembered well from the days he dated Shane). 

“Technically, we’re in the living room,” Jess argued, cocky. He ran a hand up and down Ella’s back as her face heated up against his shoulder. 

Matthew scrunched up his nose in disgust. “Same difference.”

Finally, Ella lifted her head again. She bit her lip, fighting nervous giggles. Jess smirked at her as she looked back at him. He put the backs of his hands to her flushed cheeks, attempting to cool her down. She swatted him away in annoyance, which only led him to smirk wider, and finally jumped down from his legs. The kitchen timer began to go off. She donned her oven mitts again to get the apple pie out of the oven and put it on the stovetop next to the pecan. 

“So, how was contributing to the consumerist Christmas culture?” she asked the three of them as they dumped their bags on the already-cluttered living room coffee table. After a few months in the apartment, she had begun to accept that the communal spaces would never be completely organized. It was no longer Chris’s supreme level of slobbery, either, though; they had come to a middle ground. 

“Tiring,” Leo said shortly, collapsing on the couch. 

Ella liked him, thought he was a pretty ideal match for Chris. He was a musician, into a bunch of mellow spiritualism. He balanced out Chris’s chaotic tendencies. Not that Ella ever bought into his meditation tactics or ideas about the universe in harmony. But their debates were lively, though not heated, which she always appreciated. 

And it was nice to have another artist around. He would often bring his guitar over when staying more than one night. Ella had never heard anything quite like his music before, though there were definitie folk, punk, and rock components. He played solo at clubs and bars, had been on a tour of the east coast when Ella had first arrived. His voice was beautiful, strong and clear. Once or twice, when she heard him doing his acoustic numbers, she found herself blinking back tears. Not that she would ever let any fall.

It made her miss piano, no matter how average she was at it. Leo’s passion for music reminded Ella of her mother. Every so often, she found herself wondering how different her mother’s life would have been if she had not married Jake Stevens right out of high school, getting pregnant with Noah less than a year later. She could have been playing with a symphony, for all anyone knew. She could still be alive. 

“My god, you’re such a socialist,” Chris chimed in, glancing through the bags to see which ones were not to be seen with Eleanor and Jess’s eyes. 

They’d spent a little while at the mall, before deciding it was too expensive and moving onto dollar stores. Truncheon was making money, but not nearly enough to start spending when they didn’t need to. Rent on a whole building certainly wasn’t cheap, after all, no matter how much Ella had begun contributing, which was a sizable amount. But shopping discount stores meant they could buy a pretty good bit of random crap, enough to fill all three of their arms with plastic shopping bags. 

“Every time you try to insult me, you end up complimenting me,” Ella laughed, pouring the pumpkin mixture into the crust she had prepared earlier. “And I think Matthew might be even more of a socialist than me.”

“I’d say we’re pretty much at the same level,” Matthew said, going to hang his damp coat up by the door, snowflakes glistening on the blue wool. It had been snowing on and off since the day before.

Ella nodded. “Agreed. Are you sure your lady friend isn’t gonna be joining us tomorrow? If Jess and I are gonna supply the correct amount of food, we need a correct head count.”

Narrowing his eyes at her, Matthew shook his head. At some point, Chris had badgered Mabel’s name out of him. He’d still yet to bring his girlfriend over to Truncheon to meet everyone, and they were eager to finally put a face to her name.

“No. She’s in Florida with her parents,” Matthew said.

“Huh,” Ella replied, putting a dirty bowl in the sink. “That’s where my dad is. Visiting some old friends with my uncle. Are her parents washed-up retirees too? Seems like Florida’s where they all end up.”

Jess raised his eyes from his book to glance at Ella. No one in the room could’ve missed the hostility in her tone. He knew Ella wasn’t thrilled to have had to hear about her father’s plan through Fiona. Jake had his daughter’s number. He simply hadn’t called. He hadn’t called once.

“No, they’re both lawyers,” Matthew explained, joining Chris to inspect which bags they needed to stash in their room. “They moved up to Florida from Cuba when Mabel was a baby.”

“Ah,” Ella said, placing the final pie in the oven. “Well, is she staying with them for New Year’s, too? We could have her over then.”

“No, she’s opening a new play on the 30th,” he said absently, handing bags to Chris, who walked them back into the room they shared. “She’ll be busy.”

Sighing, Ella fiddled with the ends of her loose braid and leaned against the sink. She was eager to meet Mabel, to have another female friend. She loved the men in the apartment, but she missed the kind of companionship she felt with Lane. There was something so beautiful about friendship between women, and Ella was hoping against hope they would get along well. And, besides, the woman sounded fucking awesome. She was an actress, who had just finished playing Blanche Dubois at the local theater. Ella could get behind anyone who had starred in something by Tennessee Williams. 

Ella had never met a more private person than Matthew. Not even Jess. Frankly, she was surprised he’d even begun telling them small details about Mabel in recent weeks. She suspected it meant things were getting a bit more serious. It was why she had begun pressing to meet her more and more.

“Fine. I surrender. But this  _ is _ gonna happen, one way or the other, y’know,” Ella told Matthew pointedly. 

“Sure it is, Ella,” Matthew joked, following Leo into the bedroom to go wrap presents. “Neither of you is allowed in here.”

“Whatever, dad,” Ella deadpanned, earning a laugh from everyone. Matthew did, in fact, have a pretty strong paternal side. He often acted as a surrogate parent to Chris. Reminding him to clean up, to pay bills. The two had known each other for so long, Ella suspected it just came naturally after a while.

Jess caught Ella tugging at her earring as the two of them were left alone again. “You okay?”

Swallowing dryly, she met his eyes. Since her meltdown around mid-terms, she’d been doing better, keeping her nerves at bay. But, sometimes, it crept up on her how good everything felt. They were wrapping presents, meant for Ella and Jess. She had known them less than a year. She was already getting attached to them, and they her. The semester had gone well, she and Jess were in sync, she was getting along. And it felt too perfect. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It made memories flash behind her eyes, made her want to find things wrong so she wouldn’t have to wait for them to appear, or be surprised when they did.

She tried to offer him a reassuring smile, and hoped it was convincing. “Yeah, Mariano. You know how much I love the Hallmark holidays.”

“Oh, trust me, I do,” he mused, nodding, a sardonic expression painted on his face.

. . .

Jess felt shaky, coated with a thin layer of cold sweat, when he woke from his dream. He couldn’t remember the specifics, as usual, but knew his mother had been there. Her second husband too. Randy. He had been a huge man, towering over Jess as a child. By the time Liz married him, Jess was almost a teenager. Eleven or twelve, maybe. Randy was the first one he ever dared fighting back against. He remembered the red marks his hands left on Randy’s skin, so pale and veiny he was almost translucent, like a ghost. He remembered feeling gratified to see the evidence of his bravery manifested physically on Randy’s person, even if Jess had received a black eye of his own. He could almost feel the bruise on his cheek as he awoke, his hand flying to his face defensively. 

Once he realized he was awake, his ears ringing, he reached instinctively for Ella. And he furrowed his brows when he saw she wasn’t in bed, the covers thrown aside and her pillow, fragrant with traces of lavender shampoo, with an empty indentation. He glanced at the clock in the darkness, finding it was just past three in the morning. They had all been up late, long after the snowstorm had ended, watching  _ Die Hard _ , and then  _ The Godfather _ . Both Leo and Chris agreed with Ella about the latter being a Christmas movie, though Jess and Matthew could only shake their heads at the idea. He had probably only been asleep for a couple hours, and he certainly remembered Ella lying next to him, one of her arms draped over his chest. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he got up, padding on socked feet out into the living room.

One of the end table lamps had been switched on, casting the room in a golden glow. He felt himself relax when he saw Ella on the couch, regarding a frame which leaned against the coffee table in front of her. Beside her, there was a small cardboard box. A crease of concentration sat between her brows, he could see, and he wondered what she could be looking at so intently in the middle of the night. 

“Eleanor?” he asked.

“Fuck!” she blurted out instantly, jumping slightly and putting a hand to her heart. 

Had she still worn her necklace, she would have clutched at the chain. But sometime in college she had stored it away in her jewelry box, deciding she no longer needed a constant reminder of the women who had preceded her, who had first introduced her to grief. Instead, she could carry the memories only inside her mind. Could live without their shadow looming so large. Her face fell at the sight of him, and she sighed. She moved the box next to her over to the coffee table and tucked her feet underneath her. 

“Jesus, give a girl some warning.” She ran a hand through her hair, biting at the inside of her cheek. He came to sit next to her, and she saw the shine in his brown eyes, the grayish-white pallor of his face. “Did you have one of those dreams?”

He nodded.   
  


“I’m sorry, cutie. I was…” she paused to sigh, then gestured to the picture frame and the box. “I was putting your presents together. Are you okay?”

Running a hand over his mouth, he nodded again. His eyes lingered on the picture frame, which stood only a tiny bit taller than the coffee table. He could see it held a painting, a floral scene with writing behind it. “Yeah. I’m fine. I just...you weren’t there when I woke up, so-”

“I’m sorry, Jess,” she repeated in earnest, putting an arm around his shoulders and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I didn’t think this would take me so long, but the fucking frame had those weird metal closures and my nails were too short to open them, and then the picture was crooked. I just finished yesterday and it was still drying when you got home, so I couldn’t put it in the frame until now.”

“Can I see it?” he asked, his voice still tight with panic but curious.

She smiled a little, shrugging. “I guess. I mean, it’s been Christmas for about three hours now. We don’t have to wait or anything.”

Reaching over and grabbing the painting, Ella handed it to him gently. She watched him squint at it for a moment, reading the words behind the image of two figures on a park bench, surrounded by hydrangeas as they read novels side-by-side. Realization crossed his face.

“Is this from my book?” he asked, slightly dumbfounded. 

Her grin grew in confirmation. “I was gonna rip out the actual pages and paint on them, but then decided that would be a bit too destructive. I just wasn’t feeling Graham Greene enough. But it’s the passage about-”

“Washington Square Park,” he finished for her, staring down at it and allowing himself to smirk. 

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “When they read together. I loved that part. It was one of my favorites. So I wanted to…paint it. For you.”

Jess uttered a breathy noise, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff of disbelief. “This is amazing, Eleanor.”

“I took way too long deciding which part I wanted to do. If I’d started earlier, it would look better, but-”

“Honey, you’re a fucking artist,” he interrupted softly, shaking his head.

She shrugged lightly. “So are you.”

Setting the frame down carefully, Jess put his hand to Ella’s cheek and pressed a long, tender kiss to her lips. As he pulled away, he smiled again.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, Mariano,” she replied, voice raspy and sleepy.

“That scene was about you, y’know,” he said, regaining a more even tone in his words. Memories of the dream were quickly fading, replaced with Ella’s face. Her freckled skin was free of makeup. Her eyes looked so ethereally beautiful. “Us.”

“Hm,” she hummed, caressing his cheek with her thumb, his jaw cupped in her hand. 

“The way we read to each other. And you came to visit me in Washington Square Park. And then you showed me those hydrangeas in the gazebo,” he said shortly, shivers rolling up his spine at her gentle touch.

“I remember.” Again, the word rang out in her head.  _ Home _ .

As her gaze turned less wistful, she turned to grab the box on the coffee table and put it in his lap. “That one’s not from me. I know Luke said he was fine just going to Liz’s this year, since he and Lorelai broke up and everything, but he still sent this for you.”

“ _ Really _ ?” Jess furrowed his brows, taking the package in his hands and handling it as though it were glass. When living with Luke, Christmas had never been a very big deal. Maybe a new pair of socks would come his way. But never anything extravagant. Part of him was expecting to open the box and find some new underwear or something. 

Ella placed her hand on the back of his neck delicately, watching him inspect the gift. Though she hadn’t opened it, Luke had told her its contents over the phone. And she didn’t know entirely how Jess would feel about it, even though he and Luke were on much better terms as of late. Ella still couldn’t believe Luke had accepted a check from Jess at Truncheon’s Open House, paying him back for everything which had gone on in Stars Hollow. She knew Luke never wanted anything in return. Family was family, he always said. 

“You gonna open it? Or are we waiting until next Christmas?” she teased.

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Stevens.” 

Slowly, he ripped the tape and opened it. Inside, a simple silver chain sat on a bed of napkins Jess recognized as belonging to the diner. On it, there was a small circular pendant with an etched pattern. And nothing more. Confusion deepened on his features as he held it up in the dim light, inspecting it. It was clearly old, no longer shiny. Weathered, a dull gray color. He looked to Ella for some sort of explanation, seeing as there was no note inside the small box. 

“It was your grandfather’s,” she said softly, eyeing the object. “Luke just sort of found it the other day when he was cleaning the apartment, I guess. Said you always reminded him and Liz of their dad. And they wanted you to have it.”

“Huh.” Jess’s voice was devoid of most emotion, lilted with bewilderment. “Weird, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“The necklaces. Your grandmother’s. My grandfather’s. You stop wearing yours and then suddenly I get mine. All seems a little like fate, doesn’ it?” he asked, smirk returning.

She scoffed out a laugh. She had just known he would bring it up. “You know I’m never gonna agree with fate. But yeah. Quite the coincidence.”

Jess groaned playfully. “You’re impossible.”

“Right back at ya, James Dean.”

He hesitated just a moment before slipping the chain over his neck. Something tugged at his heart, though he wasn’t quite sure what. He had never met his grandfather, though he had heard more than enough from Liz about how similar they were. Family was a funny thing. He could think no more on it, couldn’t quite transfer his emotions into coherent words. He only knew he wanted to wear it. Felt like he should. He was meant to. 

“I don’t think Luke meant to  _ have _ to wear it. I think he just wanted you to have it,” Ella said, tilting her head at him. If Jess’s relationship to his late grandfather was anything like those he had with Luke or his mother, she thought it was fair to guess ‘complicated’ could describe it.

“I know,” Jess replied, running the pendant in between his fingers once or twice before slipping it beneath his shirt. The metal was cold but not unwelcome as it fell against his chest. “I don’t do things I don’t wanna do.”

She nodded, a fondness gleaming in her eyes. “Okay. Good.”

“Hold on,” he said abruptly, then went and disappeared into their bedroom for a moment. 

Silence filled the room, and Ella marveled at the early-morning calm. There was no Christmas tree, no lights, no decorations. No need for anything besides what they had. But she was suspicious of how content she felt. The streetlights outside cast witchy shadows on the green walls, streaks of light on the worn bohemian rug. A vague scent of cinnamon and popcorn still lingered in the air. Ella glanced back at the kitchen, a vision of drab white tile and slightly outdated, rusty appliances, and she could see the pies, wrapped in tin foil, sitting on the counter. She could hear the hum of the central heating as she leaned back into the couch, which had more than one tattered throw blanket draped over the back. The walls were covered in various posters and fliers, mostly of Truncheon’s events. Leo’s guitar sat in one corner. Her sketchbook lay half open and flipped upside down on the coffee table, the spot where she had been drawing earlier in the day saved. And it was so comfortable and familiar. Ella felt like she had been there for years. 

Jess reemerged with what she immediately saw was a record in his hands, along with a stack of printer paper. “I got my presents. Figured it was time for yours.”

She laughed quietly. “Sure, cutie. We’re taking turns, huh?”

“This thing of ours is a two-way street,” he quipped, sitting back down next to her. 

She could recognize the cover of the record before he gave it to her. And an excitement instantly bubbled in her stomach. On it, Stevie Nicks, draped in various shawls, held a dove.  _ Belladonna _ . 

“I know you already have that one. But I’m pretty sure the one you have isn’t an original pressing,” he said casually.

Her eyebrows shot up immediately and she looked over at him in shock. “You got  _ an original pressing of  _ Bella  _ fucking _ Donna?!”

Jess shrugged. “Not like I climbed Everest or anything.”

“How? I mean...where the fuck did you get this?” she asked, looking back down at it and running her fingertip Stevie Nicks’ permed blonde hair.

“I know the guy who works at Top Five Records a few blocks over. He gave me a discount,” he replied lightly. He watched genuine joy blossom on her face. The amount of passion she had for music (along with everything else in her life) never ceased to amaze him. “It was a kickass deal. And I couldn’t  _ not _ get it when I saw it had ‘Edge of Seventeen.’”

“Why?” she asked.

“That’s the song you were humming the day I met you. And then you threatened to stab me because you thought I was robbing Luke’s.”   
  


“Yes. Yes, I did,” she nodded, her voice so full of love Jess had to swallow harshly to quiet the pounding of his heart. She set the record down carefully on the coffee table amid clutter. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, then cast his eyes back down to the papers he had also brought out from where they were stashed under their bed with the other presents. He had been carrying the stack around with him for months, leaving it in his desk drawers, always out of everyone’s sight. His face took on an anxious grimace. “This one isn’t as good. You’ve been warned.”

She shook her head at him a little. Anything he gave her, she would love. She was sure of it. But a whole new kind of look broke out on her face when she took the papers from him and read the title.  _ Afternoons with Amelia _ by Jess Mariano. Her smile was knowing and proud and affectionate and so profoundly painless. 

“You didn’t get to see the other one until after it got published. But, this time, you’ll be the first person to read it,” he said, his fingers ghosting tenderly over her shoulders in small, circular motions. “It’s for you. I already wrote the dedication. Hopefully you won’t want your name taken off after you read what a mess it is.”

“Okay,  _ Belladonna  _ was good, Jess. But this is the best present I’ve ever gotten. I get to read the first draft of the next book by my favorite author in the entire fucking world. How killer is that?” she told him sincerely, flipping through the pages. She hadn’t known he had even started another story, but this one was already nearly 300 pages. Almost three times as long as  _ The Subsect _ . The sneaky fuck.

Jess blushed hotly, self-conscious, averting his gaze from hers. But she set the manuscript down next to her record, then took his face gently in her hands. The kiss was slow and heated, as they both smiled against each other. And Ella was slightly breathless when they separated. 

“Hey, Merry Christmas, Mariano,” she murmured, her voice husky and low.

He snickered. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that so genuinely before.”

“Well, I’m multi-faceted,” she whispered, a smirk of her own on her lips. 

“That’s one word for it,” he muttered playfully.

She snorted. “Fuck off.”

“Never,” he shot back with a muted laugh. 

Soon, there were only whispered affirmations and sighs of pleasure between them. Afterwards, Jess managed to fall asleep again, his head on Ella’s chest. She ran her fingers through his hair as they nestled into the couch, a soft quilt over them. Her body was warm and calm, muscles relaxed. She allowed the nervous pleading of her mind to be shut out, and focused only on the moment surrounding her. Snow once again began to fall heavily outside, a soft pattering against the windows. As Ella’s eyelids became heavy and eventually shut, she listened to the sound of Jess’s soft snoring, and hoped he would be free of nightmares. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	31. Holden Caulfield or Nancy Drew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella return to Stars Hollow for Liz’s baby shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning: This chapter contains depictions/descriptions of anxiety and panic attacks. Please proceed with caution.*

“So, how do you feel about artificial intelligence?” Ella asked, unprompted, finishing a drawing of some ducklings feasting on a vulture. Her sketchpad sat to her right on the arm of the couch. She was working with the new theme of opposition. 

Jess looked up from his book, his head lying on her lap, and furrowed his brows. “ _What_?”

She shrugged. “I read about some guy in the woods of Montana creating an AI all on his own. I think it’s a recipe for disaster.”

“How so?” Setting the book on his chest upside-down, Jess glanced at her inquisitively.

Her eyes were still trained on the drawing she was completing with only one hand. “Well, once they gain a more humanoid form, will they assimilate completely into the human race or will they be distinct from us? I mean, will they enact some revenge plot on us or will we coexist peacefully? We’re not the first humans who’ve had to think about this, but it’s the new millennium. Seems like that kinda stuff is closer than ever.”

Breathing a long sigh, Jess let a smirk cross his face. He peeked at his watch, and found it was only half past five. Chris was due home soon, having gone to do some PR business. Matthew was staying at Mabel’s place for the weekend. The apartment, silent save for their voices, was bathed in evening light. It had been warm for a February day, but a cold front was set to arrive very soon. 

“It’s not even six yet. And already we’ve arrived at _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?_ ” he asked with a doubtful chuckle. 

Finally, she did the last bit of shading on her sketch and shut her book, her pencil saving her place. Her smile was small and sardonic. “You mean _Blade Runner_? Or are you actually insinuating that the book was better than the movie?”

“I’m not insinuating, Stevens. I’m stating a known fact,” he argued flatly. 

She rolled her eyes. “Are you _ever_ gonna get some taste?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he shot back.

Ella scoffed. “Says the man who _honestly_ believes Coldplay could be described as an alternative band?”

“I’m not having this conversation again,” Jess deadpanned playfully, picking his book back up. 

“Because you know I’m right.”

“Because you’re relentlessly stubborn.”

“On this particular topic?” Ella said, eyebrows raised. “Any sane person would be.”

“‘Sane’ isn’t quite the right word,” Jess muttered, pretending to ignore her. 

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, then gave a curt nod and snatched the Kesey book from his hands before he could even react. Sitting up instantly, Jess eyed the book where she held it over the arm of the couch. Certainly, it was in his reach, but that wasn’t the point. 

“You know this means war, right?” he asked.

“I’m aware,” she replied coolly, mocking. “But you’ll just have to try to come over here and get this back.”

“If you insist,” he shrugged, sighing slightly. 

He launched forwards and began tickling her sides. Eyes widening, Ella dropped the book. The paperback fell with a small _thud_ on the cracked hardwood on the other side of the couch, forgotten. Her sketchbook also slipped off the arm of the couch, the pencil falling out and rolling underneath the chair nearby. Jess had gone straight for the jugular. It had only taken sleeping in the same bed with her a few times for him to realize Ella was one of the most ticklish people he had ever encountered. She laughed loudly, openly, throwing her head back. Her hair splayed behind her as she laid her head against one of the throw pillows and Jess ended up on top, straddling her.

“This is what you get for being a book tease, Daria,” he said. 

Her smile was wide, hurting her cheeks, as she pleaded through breathless giggles. “Fuck you! Stop!”

After a few more seconds, he obliged, his hands going slack and gripping her sides gently instead. The grin remained on her lips, her cheeks a lively pink. She caught her breath, dreamy eyes softening as her gaze lingered on his face. “I hate you, Mariano.”

He chuckled in disbelief. “You love me.”

Ella shrugged as Jess leaned in closer to her, breath hot on her face. “Close enough.”

As he went to kiss her, she placed a hand on the back of his neck, cool against his flushed skin. Her lips were soft but firm, needy. She was just wrapping her legs around his waist as he sat up, preparing to lift her up and take her to their bedroom, when Chris walked in. Immediately after tossing his keys on the kitchen counter, he staggered back and clamped his free hand over his eyes. 

“Ugh, c’mon guys!” he whined.

Ella gasped and pulled away, hiding her face behind Jess, who turned to his friend with an annoyed stare. About a minute more and they would’ve been in the clear.

“How many times?” Chris continued, glancing through his splayed fingers to ensure it was safe before removing his hand again. “This is a communal living room! _Communal_!”

“Sorry,” Jess said lightly. “Next time, we’ll hang a sock on the door.”

Ella shoved his shoulder playfully, embarrassed. “Shut up!”

Chris grimaced in distaste but let it slide. He cast a stack of envelopes on the coffee table in front of them before going to hang up his things. “Some mail came.”

Swallowing thickly, Ella climbed off of Jess and began sifting through the mail. Jess watched her go through the envelopes, his chin resting on her shoulder. She tossed a few his way, some bills and some author inquiries. 

Only two of them were for her, one being a check for her teacher’s assistant services. The spring semester was going considerably better than the fall, as Ella got the hang of the program. She smiled down at it and picked up her sketchbook again, tucking the check inside and making a mental note to cash it on Monday. Underneath it was a larger envelope, addressed in delicate, handwritten cursive. The return address was for a woman named Carrie from Stars Hollow. For the life of her, she couldn’t produce a face to match the name. Furrowing her brows, she ripped it open and read the stiff card which fell out. 

“Hm,” she hummed, beginning to chew at her thumbnail as she looked it over. 

“What’s up?” Jess asked absently, flipping through his own pile.

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella took a hesitant pause before she spoke. The door shut behind Chris as he disappeared into his own room, and Ella was glad the inquiring ears were gone. “I got invited to Liz’s baby shower.”

“Huh,” Jess chirped, indifferent. “When?”

Her eyes landed on the date and she smirked bitterly. “Tomorrow. What a master at planning, your mother.”

“It’s what she’s famous for,” Jess quipped, finally setting his mail back on the coffee table and meeting her eyes again. “You wanna go? There’s no other plans this weekend, right?”

“I don’t know,” Ella shrugged. “Obviously, you could come with. Maybe catch up with Luke or something. He’s probably not doing so hot since everything with Lorelai. I mean...do you _want_ me to go?”

“Not my decision to make,” he said in a clipped tone. He ran a hand over his mouth and peeked down at the invitation. It was pink and glittery. He snorted a bitter laugh. “If you wanna go, I’ll come with.”

“You have no opinion on this?” she asked. “None at all?”

“Nope,” he answered, shaking his head. “No opinion at all.”

She blew a breath out her nose, eyes calculating, as she read the invitation over again and considered the options. Jess didn’t seem thrilled about it, but didn’t seem enraged either. It was nice they had thought of her at all. And Ella had been worrying about Luke in the back of her mind quite a bit as of late. She’d heard through Lane that Lorelai had somehow ended up marrying Rory’s dad, Christopher, in Paris. Besides, Jess spoke with Liz on the phone at least once a month. They weren’t estranged. It would be good, she told herself. Mature. 

“Might as well,” she said with finality, adding her own envelopes to the madness on the coffee table. She would have to grab her lone, neat stack later. “Since they remembered to invite me. Feels like I should go.”

Jess nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she echoed, tugging on her earring. “We can take my car. And we’ll have to stop and get a gift on the way, I guess. But the party’s not until four, so we can definitely swing it. I guess you’ll have to hang out at Luke’s or something while I go?”

“Sure,” Jess said, aloof. “I’ll call him later and let him know we’re coming. We should probably stay with him. There’s no telling what kind of state Liz and TJ’s house is in.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a wise choice.”

“Agreed.” He ran an anxious hand through his hair and straightened up slightly, then seemed to lose some of the tension in his shoulders. The small smirk reappeared on his lips. “But, in the meantime, you wanna finish what we started?”

Ella grinned wickedly and grabbed his hand, leading him towards the bedroom door. “No time like the present.”  
  


. . .

Usually, when Jess emerged from a nightmare, a big gasp brought him immediately back to reality. He would jolt physically as soon as his eyes flew open. But, this time, he found he couldn’t get quite as much of the dry central heating air as he needed when he reentered the waking world. His chest felt tight, as it often did in a bad dream’s aftermath, but his throat also felt impossibly small. His breathing came in short gasps. His heart beat hard against his ribs, making him feel almost nauseous. Though he was sticky with sweat, shivers rolled through his body, making his hands tremble. And for just one moment, he feared he was so lightheaded he would pass out.

Ella didn’t feel his movements so much as hear his shuffling around. When she cracked her eyes open, and blinked away the first few seconds of blurriness, she found him leaning up against the wall behind the bed. His eyes were wide and terrified, and he couldn’t control his breathing despite the hand he held desperately to his chest. 

“Whoa, hey, Jess,” she murmured softly. 

Sitting up, she immediately went to bring a hand to his shoulder, but he flinched away from her. 

“I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to, okay?” she told him. 

He nodded weakly.

Worry crept up her throat, but she did her best to keep her voice calm. She had seen shades of the same reaction each time he had a nightmare, but it had never been quite so extreme. His pupils had never been blown-out, as she could see in the grayish light of the early morning, and he had never had trouble breathing before.

“What do you need?” she asked, trying to get him to meet her gaze. When he finally did, she could see tears just about to spill over. 

“Elle, I...I don’t…” He struggled for words, panting.

“Alright, that’s fine,” she whispered. “It’s fine if you don’t know. Everything is fine, Jess. But let’s just breathe, alright? Breathe with me.”

She took a long, loud breath in through her nose, then let it out through her mouth. 

“Do it with me, James Dean. In and out, huh?” she said. 

Though he raised a doubtful eyebrow, eventually, he did as she instructed. His hands almost felt numb, pins and needles, but they stopped shaking after a few minutes of slow breaths. He grabbed her hand in his own, squeezing tightly. He wondered instantly why he had withdrawn from her before. The feeling of her skin against his did perhaps more to soothe him than the breathing did. 

She offered a tiny smile as he interlaced their fingers, and squeezed back. “Good job, Jess. Everything’s fine. I’m right here.”

Again, he nodded, more emphatically. There were glistening tear tracks running down his cheeks. He sniffled as his breathing became regular again, and he bit down hard on his bottom lip to maintain whatever semblance of control he could. 

“You okay?” she asked, watching his muscles begin to ease up.

Releasing her hand, Jess averted his gaze and felt a blush heat his skin. “Yeah. Yeah. Fine.”

Ella said nothing more, instead gently laying him back down. She tugged the covers over them again, though she knew the alarm would probably go off in less than an hour or two. She brought his head to her chest, running her fingers through his hair and pressing a kiss to the top of his head. Wiping some of the dampness from his face with her thumb, she rubbed her free hand up and down over his back. 

“One of those dreams, cutie?” she asked quietly.

He hummed in confirmation.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” he said, and she thought she heard his voice becoming watery again.

“Okay,” she replied, soft but resolute. It was the response she had expected, but it seemed worth asking for such an acute reaction.

A calm, comfortable silence passed between them. Outside, the birds were chirping, and the traffic noise had already started. Slats of light snuck through the closed blinds and cast white strips over the gray comforter. Reaching over, Jess began to trace a fingertip over the tattoo on the inside of her left forearm. He did it often with her body art, after having watched her run her hands over her sketches so many times.

“Remind me about this one,” he said softly.

She smiled. He’d asked her more than once after a nightmare. She only had two tattoos so far, though she had plans for a third. Quality meant money, and she was still saving up. Sometimes he asked about the one on her leg, an antique bird cage with an open door. Neither of her tattoos had any color, drawn in a delicate, shaded style by an artist in New Haven. She was talented, and Gil knew her through his sandwich shop connections. She was still apprenticing, making sandwiches to get by before she could open her own shop or get permanently hired at one. 

The birdcage had actually been Lane’s idea, after Ella moved in with her. Partially inspired by Keats’s odes, Ella had thought of getting a simple bird tattoo. She’d mentioned it to Lane, who lit up immediately at the mention of a rebellious act, and suggested something a bit different. The metaphor was clear, the tattoo was beautiful. The experience was better than she thought it would be, and she’d gone back for her second only a few months later, on Mother’s Day. 

As much as Ella loved the birdcage, the tulip on her arm was her favorite. By the same artist, it had the same style. It was delicate, the bloom near the crook of her elbow and the stem tapering off and disappearing gracefully a little above her wrist. 

“When I was a kid,” she began, “my mother had a kickass garden. I always wanted to help her, planting and watering and everything. But, as we all know, I kill everything except cactuses. She gave me a bunch of tulip seeds for my birthday once, and I made them my project. Got some books about flowers from the library, and everything. Only one ended up growing, anyway. But I was proud of it. And my mom was proud of me. And now I remember every time I look at my arm.”

Jess could feel the vibrations of Ella’s raspy voice in her chest, his ear pressed against her t-shirt as he listened. His eyes were getting heavy again, his body stressed from the rude awakening. It made him feel silly, but it had always so easily put him back to sleep. Not having to talk. Just listening to her. 

“Pretty sentimental of you, Stevens,” he joked. 

She chuckled. “Hypocrite. Love at first sight much?”

“Who am I to deny a law of the universe? Not like I could help it. I saw you and it was done,” he argued impassively. 

“Guess I’m just irresistible,” she teased. 

“Seems that way.”

Her own eyes fluttered shut. She was warm but not uncomfortable. Cozy, she supposed, was the word for it. Jess on her right side, with his head on her chest, seconds away from snoring. 

“Hey, I _do_ love you, Mariano.”

One corner of Jess’s mouth quirked up in a lazy smile, as he dozed despite the uneasiness and embarrassment still sitting in his stomach. “I know, Stevens. Love you back.”

. . .

Humming along with the CD, Ella cast nervous glances Jess’s way. His scowl was near permanent as he stared out the window at the passing scenery. The breeze was frigid as the sun beat down on the Connecticut streets. They were only five minutes away from Liz and TJ’s house, and Ella felt far less nostalgia than she was expecting. Fiona and Adam both had plans for the day, and said they simply couldn’t carve out the time to see her. Not one minute. Adam had some project he was spending the weekend at a friend’s house to finish. And Fiona had hair appointments booked solid. Ella knew it was naive to think they would fit in time for her on such a spur of the moment visit, but the disappointment remained. Stars Hollow didn’t look the same to her, feel the same to her, no matter how identical it seemed. Colorful decorations popped up on the sidewalks and there was a banner for some random town holiday above Taylor’s store. She didn’t bother to read it; next weekend was Valentine’s Day and she knew whatever the town was currently celebrating would just be an excuse to drum up business for the actual calendar event. As soon as “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” ended, she pulled her station wagon over to the side, outside Liz and TJ’s modest ranch-style, adorned with lawn ornaments and wind chimes and other kitschy decorations. A bunch of pink balloons streamed from where they were tied to the mailbox, which was shaped like a fish. 

“Okay. Out with it,” she said, turning to him just as she pulled the parking brake.

Jess faced her, furrowing his brows. “What?”

“What’s with you?” Ella asked. “You always sing along to Elton John. At least, when it’s just the two of us you do. ‘Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters’ is your favorite. You’re not singing so...what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jess said shortly, arms crossed over his flannel.

Ella blew her curtain bangs from her eyes in frustration, the rest of her locks pulled back in a low bun. She pulled the keys from the ignition. “Can we just skip this whole denial part and get to the part where you tell me what’s going on with you?”

“This isn’t the denial part,” Jess said, rolling his eyes. “This is the part where I tell you nothing is wrong because nothing is wrong. Two different parts entirely.”

“I asked you if you still wanted to come after everything that happened last night. And you said, and I quote: ‘Yes.’ And you didn’t want to talk about it, which is totally fine. But you seemed so out of it this morning, and-”

“This _isn’t_ about last night,” he interrupted, a defensive bite in his voice. His muscles were tense.

“Alright,” she nodded, eyebrows raised. “Then what the hell is it about?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“I think you might be a worse liar than me,” she mused peevishly. “Just give it up, Mariano. _What_ is wrong?”

“The third degree is getting a little old, Nancy Drew,” he shot back, raising his voice slightly.

She spoke with her hands, a small, bitter, sarcastic smirk on her face. “You know what I think is getting old? The Holden fucking Caulfield act, which I haven’t seen in, like, three years. Now, you obviously don’t wanna be here, jackass. You _obviously_ didn’t want me to go to this thing. Which you could’ve mentioned about two hundred miles ago. But I guess I wasn’t worthy of that courtesy. I’m only your girlfriend and your best friend, but who am I kidding? There’s no one on the planet who could possibly be privy to the thoughts of tortured genius, Jess Mariano! Excuse me!”

Grabbing the present and her purse from the backseat and shutting the driver’s side door behind her harshly, she began trudging up the cobblestone path to the house. 

Jess sighed heavily as he got out of the car and leaned against the passenger side. He watched as Ella stopped abruptly and turned on her heel, fire in her hazel eyes as she doubled back and held the keys out to him.

“For you, Caulfield. Avoid the phonies on your way. I hear they tend to jaywalk,” she snapped as he took the keys. 

“You’re so fucking hilarious,” he retorted, eyes narrowed.

“And _you_ are so fucking annoying,” she shouted over her shoulder as she neared the front door. 

“Right back at ya, Stevens!”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth as he saw Liz come out to meet Ella, enveloping her in a warm, cheerful hug. Her baby bump was round and visible from the street, and she offered her son a wave from the distance. He returned it begrudgingly. Feeling his stomach do a flip, his eyes followed Ella as she vanished into the house and didn’t turn back for a final look at him. 

. . .

Evening had darkened to a deep, silky blue outside. The air was icy and thick with the promise of forthcoming snow. Ella sat on the porch with Miss Patty as she smoked from her long cigarette holder. The day hadn’t been her happiest, but Ella was glad to have a chance to reunite with the best dance teacher on the East Coast. Babette had left earlier, something about a gig for Maury’s jazz group. Carrie, who Ella had recognized as one of the crazy guests from Liz’s bachelorette party upon seeing her face again, was inside with Liz and TJ. And, Ella couldn’t think of anything she wanted to hear less than the story TJ was currently telling of the fight he and Jess had gotten into at a strip club. The father-to-be had shown up halfway through the party to be present when the gifts were opened, wearing an ostentatious Hawaiian shirt, inexplicably. 

Ella’s glass was filled with watery orange juice, the ice cubes long since having melted. The drink was tangy, sour, and she had downed at least four of them over the course of the past three hours. 

“And I told Marlene I simply _couldn’t_ take her place,” Patty said, words snaking out of her mouth in white clouds. She was draped in velvet shawls and several long necklaces. “But she insisted!”

“I never knew you were a Dietrich stand-in,” Ella said, head buzzing and airy. 

Patty nodded, an eyebrow raised suggestively. “I was her stand-in in more ways than one. Rudolf Sieber was a hell of a man.”

Snorting a laugh, Ella half-listened as she leaned over to get a better view of the full moon and the bright stars. She slid right off the porch swing and landed directly on her ass. Bursting out in drunken cackles, she somehow managed to keep the drink gripped in her hand. She gulped up the rest of it, then placed it down on the painted wood floor next to her. Patty laughed along suspiciously. 

“Darling, are you alright?” 

Ella nodded through her sloppy giggles, licking her lips. “I’m great, Miss Patty. Y’know, I don’t usually like orange juice too much, but I love it tonight. And Liz loved the pajamas we got. _I_ thought the piglets would be better, but Jess insisted we get the sheep. He was right, I guess. It’d be nice if he was so open about more than just his onesie opinions.”

“My dear,” Patty began, stubbing out her cigarette, “that’s not orange juice. That’s a screwdriver.”

“Hm?” Ella asked, looking up at her from her place on the floor with large, glassy eyes. 

“A screwdriver. It’s orange juice and _vodka_ ,” Patty explained, half-amused and half-concerned. She went and shouted something through the front door to Liz, TJ, Carrie, and the rest of the crowd. Ella said nothing, only looking down in confusion at her empty cup.

Liz appeared next to Patty in a second, both of them coming over and lifting Ella by the upper arms. Smiling widely, Liz gave Ella a hug goodbye. Ella laughed in her grasp, more receptive to the contact than she was when she first got to the shower. 

“I had so much fun! Thank you for inviting me!” Ella exclaimed, her voice high and intoxicated. 

Grin ever-present, Liz pulled away from Ella and held her by the shoulders. “Aw, thank you for coming. I love the onesie! Patty’s gonna walk you back to my bro’s diner, alright?”

Ella paused for a long, apprehensive moment, then nodded happily. “Okay, sure. Hey, did Carrie give me vodka? Patty said something about vodka. But Carrie said it was orange juice and I couldn’t taste anything else!”

“You’ll be fine, sweetie,” Liz said calmly, then turned Ella back to Patty. 

Ella was about to question her further, but she was already being whisked away.

“C’mon, let’s get you back to the diner,” Patty said, pushing Ella forwards by the shoulderblades. 

Babbling on about whatever passed through her brain, Ella appreciated the cold air on her flushed skin as they strolled through town on the five-minute walk back to Luke's. At some point, she shed her black peacoat and slung it over her shoulder. There were rosy patches blooming on her chest, exposed in her floral black dress. Her tights had somehow sustained more than one rip and her Doc Martens felt leaden on her feet. The lights of the diner were a beacon against the dark backdrop of town at night. She saw Jess, all broody on a stool at the end of the counter, through the front window.

“Ugh, Jess is such an asshole sometimes,” she muttered, her words thick like molasses. 

Patty chuckled, walking her up the concrete steps. “He’s a man, honey. What did you expect?”

The bell over the door jingled jovially. Luke was cleaning up the counter as the Saturday dinner rush died down. The aroma of salt and grease was potent. Finally, the wave of nostalgia hit Ella as she hung her coat and bag by the door. She almost knocked the rack down as Patty’s hands hovered over her form cautiously. 

“Yes, everyone, your eyes do not deceive you,” Ella announced. “Luke’s best waitress has returned to her humble beginnings in Stars Hollow.”

At the sound of her voice, Jess turned and his eyes widened. He abandoned his book on the counter and hopped up from the stool. Luke, equally startled, could only stand there with his mouth agape.

“What happened?” Jess asked, rushing over to Ella. His hands went to her waist to guide her, but she swatted him away with a heavy sigh of frustration.

“Get off me, Holden Caulfield,” she mumbled, wobbly on her feet.

“Carrie gave her five screwdrivers. She thought it was orange juice,” Patty said shortly, offering some greetings to the stray customers sitting around and looking on in curiosity. “You got her, Jess? I have a midnight sauna salsa class to set up for.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Patty,” Jess said, taking over for her. 

Ella ran right into one of the tables. It screeched across the tile floor, leaving a dark mark. But Jess caught her before she fell on her face. Patty offered Ella a final kiss on the cheek before making her exit. 

“Dammit, Crazy Carrie strikes again!” Luke exclaimed. Jess sensed a rant coming. “I never would’ve let her go if I knew that’s who was throwing it!”

“You think you could stop Eleanor Stevens from going anywhere?” Jess asked doubtfully, continuing his failed attempts to direct her.

“Luke, your nephew is a jackass, did you know that? And _such_ a dork,” Ella said, coming behind the counter and learning her elbows on it tiredly. Luke could smell the vodka, strong on her breath. “I mean, he loves broadway. I’m serious. And Elton John. And Nora Ephron. And remember when we were in high school when he got that black eye from-”

Jess finally managed to clamp his hand over Ella’s mouth, as she had been shoving his hands away during the entire diatribe. She was surprisingly strong while drunk, even though she was such a lightweight. Licking his hand, Ella managed to get her mouth free again. She laughed at Jess’s grimace as he wiped his palm on her sleeve, but pressed her back against him nonetheless. She felt some stability returning as he began to support her weight.

“Okay, I think it’s time we get you to bed,” Jess said. His cheeks were flushed and there was crease of concern on his forehead. “Don’t you think so, Luke?”

“Yeah, Ella, the sheets are clean. You guys can take my bed tonight,” Luke said, nodding along as he went over to the cash register. 

“But I don’t wanna take your bed. Who are we to take your bed?” Ella argued, as Jess led her back towards the stairs. She stumbled over her words, and swayed as she tried to walk. 

“It’s fine, Ella,” Luke insisted warily. “You’ll take the bed.”

“But-”

Jess uttered a long sigh, then hoisted her up bridal-style, fed up with struggling. Groaning dramatically, Ella stiffened for only a moment, then relaxed in his arms. Her head lolled drunkenly against his shoulder.

“Oh, look, my jackass in shining armor,” she spat out, eyes closed. 

“Yeah, I’m the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, I know,” he replied, finishing his climb up the stairs and managing to open the door to the apartment with only one hand. 

“At least you’re self-aware.” 

She was already drifting off, and he set her down atop the soft orange cover on Luke’s double bed. She rolled over onto her side and grabbed a fistful of the sheets sleepily. By the time Jess returned to her with a glass of water and some aspirin, she was beginning to snore. He set the glass and pills on the bedside table.

“Elle? Wake up for just a sec,” he whispered, shaking her shoulder gently.

She gave another petulant moan, but opened her bleary eyes and sat up against the headboard. 

“Take these,” he said shortly, giving her the glass and the aspirin. 

Shooting him a scornful glare, she knocked them back without a word. 

“You want the Led Zeppelin t-shirt or the blue flannel?” he asked, going over to the duffel he’d brought up to the apartment earlier. 

She pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the headache already. “Fuck, I wish I brought the KISS t-shirt. But if I brought it, I would definitely forget it. I can see it already. Led Zeppelin, please.”

He nodded, then came back to the end of the bed and began untying her shoes for her. Her eyes fluttered shut again. The smell of pine in the apartment was old and comforting. The covers were soft against her skin as Jess tugged off her stockings, leaving her legs bare. He swapped them for a pair of plaid pajama shorts, which she actually tried (unsuccessfully) to help him put on.

Suddenly, she began to clutch at the leather cord around her neck. On it, there hung a heavy, blue geode, flat against the exposed skin of her chest. She tried twice to get it off herself, before Jess finished with her shorts and pushed her hands aside. He raised it up and off of her carefully.

“Your mom put that on me. I might’ve given her twenty bucks for it? I don’t remember,” she told him, surly.

Jess cracked a joyless smirk. “How mercenary of her.”

“I wish I wasn’t drunk,” she murmured as he instructed her to raise her arms so he could get her dress and bra off. 

“I know,” he replied. 

“Being drunk fucking sucks,” she continued as he slipped the worn cotton t-shirt over her head. 

“I know,” he repeated. Jess scooted up closer to the head of the bed. “Turn around.”

She did as he said, though not without sulky huff. In measured, delicate movements, he undid her hairdo, taking out the bobby pins and the elastic. He ran his fingers gently through her hair, untangling it.

“Okay. Do you wanna brush your teeth first?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head, burrowing beneath the covers and turning away from him. Swallowing dryly, Jess gave a curt nod and was about to turn and leave when Ella flipped suddenly onto her back.

“Hey, you have to stay on your side in case-”

“I just want you to talk to me,” she interjected, reaching up to stroke his stubbly cheek with her thumb. For a moment, as she continued, he thought he saw the shine of tears in her eyes. “We need to tell each other everything. I’m really fucking worried about you. And I just...I love you and...maybe I was being too aggressive. I don’t know. But I really, really wish I wasn’t drunk and my head hurts and I wish we could go home and-”

“Hey, Eleanor, just go to sleep,” he said softly, taking her hand from his face and running his thumb over the back. She was rambling, eyes red-rimmed, beyond exhausted. Tucking her in tightly, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. “We can talk about this tomorrow.”

Irrational hurt passed over Ella’s face and she scoffed angrily. She faced away from him again, the cold shoulder. “Whatever. Holden fucking Caulfield.”

. . .

It was past eleven when Luke finally closed up for the night. He had no place to be, and let Caesar go early. The diner was completely silent as he scrubbed away at smudged surfaces and swept up crumbs. He wished for Lorelai, could picture her at home with Christopher. Around the kitchen table where he used to sit, with Rory and Christopher’s own daughter, Gigi. Luke wondered at it in the back of his mind. Christopher had a daughter, just like him. But he’d made it work. He’d figured it out, and gotten Lorelai in the end. Why hadn’t he been able to? What was wrong with him?

He pushed the thoughts away again, shaking his head. They did no good. What’s done is done, he told himself. Maybe one day he would find someone again. But he had never met anyone who made him feel the way Lorelai did. No one else in the world. He wasn’t optimistic he’d honestly be able to come across true love again. He trudged up the creaky back stairs, his brow heavy with anguish, after shutting off the downstairs lights. Opening the door to the apartment, which still read ‘Williams Hardware’ all these years after his father had died, he was surprised to see Jess at the kitchen table, book in hand. The light over the sink was the only one left on, creating a dim glow. 

  
  


“Hey,” he said quietly, locking the door behind him, even though the front door of the diner was locked as well. 

Jess’s eyes lingered on the page for a moment as he finished a sentence, before he saved his place and looked up. “Hey. You finish closing?”

“Yep,” Luke said, placing his keys down near the door and immediately going to grab a beer from the fridge. He held one out to his nephew. “You want one?”

Not even considering it, Jess shook his head. He tossed a nervous look at Ella, who lay snoring and tangled up in the orange sheets. She was talking nonsense in her sleep, had been for the past two or three hours as Jess attempted to finish his Kesey novel. He was having trouble concentrating. 

“No, thanks,” he said. “I think at least one of us should be sober tonight.”

“Suit yourself.”

Luke came to sit beside Jess silently, sipping his Heineken and waiting for whatever story was to come. It was only the second time in his life he had seen Ella drunk, and it was making him feel an odd sense of deja-vu.

“I wanted to help clean up downstairs, but I was worried she would flip over onto her back. I figured I should stay here and...make sure she was okay,” Jess explained, apologetic.

“Don’t worry about it.” Luke shrugged it off dismissively.

“She hates being drunk,” Jess said, eyes still on Ella. “I mean, on her twenty-first birthday, we didn’t even go out. We just watched _Goodfellas_.”

“Why?” Luke asked, tilting his head in confusion.

Jess smirked. “She said it was a makeshift rite of passage, since she didn’t want to drink. Because they say ‘fuck’ exactly three hundred times.”

“Sounds like her,” Luke said fondly. 

“Yeah,” Jess replied, looking down at his lap and breathing a sigh. 

“She didn’t seem too happy with you earlier,” Luke said pointedly, eyebrows raised. “Or was that just the booze talking?”

Jess uttered a bitter chuckle. “I’d say a sober woman’s thoughts are a drunk woman’s words, but she sounded pretty much the same level of pissed in the car on the way up here as she did after five screwdrivers.”

“What happened?”  
  


“I don’t know,” Jess said, his words a sigh. “I thought I’d be okay with all this. The baby shower and everything. But I got to thinking about it more and more and...I just don’t know. Do you think Liz is ready for another kid?”

Luke paused a moment, appraising Jess’s face. He saw sincere fear in his nephew’s features, taking him slightly aback. “I think so. And TJ’s not the sharpest tool in the shed by any means, but I think he’s even less of a flight risk than your mom. And they live right down the road from me, Jess.”

Jess hummed. “I guess that’s true. I just got to remembering some things about Liz and...Ella could tell something was up. She can always tell. But I guess I didn’t feel like talking.”

Blowing a long breath out through his nose, Luke nodded. “Well, you don’t have to worry about this kid. I promise. I won’t let anything happen.”

“Thanks.”

“And Jess?” Luke began, meeting his nephew’s eyes. “Talk to her. Tell her everything that’s on her mind. There’s no point in hiding things. It’ll drive her crazy, and it’ll drive her away. We’ve had this conversation before. Open two-way communication is-”

“The foundation of love, I know, Dr. Phil,” Jess grumbled, rolling his eyes at the self-help jargon. But, inside, he stored the sentiment away for later. “Old habits, I guess. I’m working on it.”

“Good. That’s all that matters,” Luke said, offering Jess a hopeful smile and finishing off the last of his beer. He tossed it in the recycling and retreated to the bathroom to get ready for bed. 

Jess ran a hand over his mouth and then rubbed at his tired eyes with the heels of his hands. His dream from the night before flashed across his mind quickly, and he tried to lock the images away. The thought of curling up on the old leather couch made him grimace. He wasn’t eager for a repeat. One more chapter, he told himself. Then he would be ready to try and rest.

. . .

Whatever possessed her to wake up at five in the morning on a Sunday, she wasn’t entirely sure. But the pounding headache in her temples probably had something to do with it. Luke was already gone, the twin bed on which Jess had once slept made neatly and left empty. Early morning deliveries perhaps. Or maybe he was getting ready for the brunch crowd. It was his least favorite group of customers, Ella remembered. As she awoke and saw Jess was asleep beneath a throw blanket on the couch, book on the floor next to him, she hopped up from the bed. The weathered hardwood was cold beneath her bare feet, and she wished the room wasn’t quite as awash in morning light. She had to squint against it as she padded over, sitting on the edge of one couch cushion. 

“Jess?” she whispered, groggy. She raked her hands through her messy hair and tucked it behind her ears. Goosebumps rose on her arms after having left the warmth of the bed. “Jess?”

He stirred on only the second try, scrunching up his face. He was still dressed in his clothes from the day before. Eventually, his brown eyes were open, and surprised to see her up before him. “Hey, Elle. You okay?”

“Yeah. Why are you on the couch?”

“Oh,” he said, throwing an arm across his eyes and yawning. “You were pretty mad last night. I didn’t know if you’d want me to get in with you.”

She shook her head, a small smile ghosting over her lips. “I always want you sleeping next to me, cutie. Even when I’m mad. I mean, we’ve got sides of the bed now. There’s tradition to maintain.”

“Like you’ve ever cared about tradition,” he chuckled, blinking away the sleep in his field of vision. She looked pale, almost a sickly green, but her eyes were clear once again. And her speech was no longer drunkenly strung together. 

“Fair enough,” she replied. “But I wasn’t sleep-in-separate-beds mad. I was just I’m-wasted-and-annoyed mad.”

“How the hell did you not know you were drinking screwdrivers?” he asked, a teasing smirk appearing on his face. 

She rolled her eyes, mostly at herself. “I don’t know, Mariano. I don’t ever drink. How am I supposed to know what alcohol tastes like? And I don’t know what the fuck Carrie did to those, but I swear they were a dead ringer for straight orange juice.”

“Whatever you say, Stevens.”

“Shut up,” she quipped with good nature. “Did I try to sing _Rumors_ or anything? I don’t really remember.”

“Mercifully, no,” he said, sitting up against the arm of the couch. “Nothing crazy. You are a bit of a weepy drunk, but who isn’t?”

“Jesus,” she murmured, blushing slightly.

He chuckled half-heartedly, then his face grew more earnest. “Hey, Elle?”

“Hm?”

Pausing to heave a heavy sigh, he raked a hand through his bedhead.

“I didn’t want to come here because of the dream I had,” Jess spit out, before he could lose his nerve. “Nothing specific...just a bunch of stuff from when I was growing up. It just...Liz wasn’t the best mom and I was remembering...a lot. And I was nervous about her…”

“Screwing up that kid’s life?” she asked.

He nodded shyly.

“Okay. I get why you’d be nervous. But she’s with TJ now, and she’s older. And, plus, the day Luke lets anything happen to that baby is the day Coldplay is classified is an alternative band,” Ella said. At some point, she began running her fingers through his hair in reassurance. “I really, really think it’ll be fine.”

“I know. I talked to Luke last night.”

“And you’re feeling better about it?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, feeling a small weight lift from somewhere inside him. “But I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just...I don’t know. I was...scared. It was stupid.”

“It’s not stupid, Jess,” she shook her head, gaze softening. “It makes sense. I’m sorry if I pushed you too hard. I didn’t mean to. You just...you scared me. And I was going insane because I knew something was wrong and...I was just worried about you.”

“I know, Daria,” he said fondly. 

“I mean, you had a panic attack, Jess.” Her voice was deep with fatigue, and had pleading quality which struck Jess’s heart. “You couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to help and...maybe you should see someone? My brother’s therapist helped him a lot after my mom.”

“I’ll think about it,” Jess replied, shockingly genuine. Ella didn’t think he would be entertaining the thought of getting help so easily. 

“Good.”

“Not like I’ve got the best insurance though.”

Ella sighed. “Yeah. Fucking capitalism.”

“It’s a little early to be going Marxist, I think,” he said, laughing breathily.

“Oh, it’s never too early,” she shot back.

“Duly noted,” Jess replied. Then, after a hesitant pause: “So, we’re fine?”

“Everything’s fine, James Dean,” she said, nodding. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said with a bashful laugh, bowing his head.

Ella’s smile grew at his shyness, and she pressed a brief kiss to his forehead before he lifted his head back up and their lips met. As they pulled away from each other, he placed an affectionate hand on her cheek. 

“How’s your head?”

“I’ll survive.”

“I’m glad,” he quipped. “You think you can handle some breakfast?”

“Worth a try.”

“Okay, once Luke opens up, we can head downstairs. Then let’s go home?” he proposed.

“Yeah. Sounds like a plan,” she said, almost wistful. “Let’s go home.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback is greatly appreciated, especially on a chapter as long as this one!


	32. Of Princess Bride Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella plays piano for the first time in a long while.

Rushing up the stairs to the apartment, Ella almost tripped more than once. The main floor of Truncheon was empty, books shut and the sign on the front door turned to _Closed_. Rain showered down hard, and all manner of umbrella patterns could be seen on the sidewalk outside. Her own umbrella, collapsed and dripping, sat next to the front door. She’d practically thrown it down in her hurry. Biting down on her cheek, she was nearly out of breath by the time she made it through the apartment door. Everyone was mingling in the living room, nursing beers and waiting for the last member of the group to arrive. They looked up at the sound of her huffy entrance and offered greetings. 

She barely gave anyone a glance as she hung up her raincoat and began undoing her french braid on her walk to the bedroom. “Sorry, sorry. Just give me five minutes and I won’t look like a bank teller anymore.”

Seven o’clock had come and gone, and she had still been stuck in the lecture hall, while her advisor gave her notes on the presentation in art history. All in all, her advisor had been impressed. But she was not one for brevity, and Ella had taken several anxious peeks at her watch during the review. It was the last day of class before spring break, and Ella was eager for the week off. She’d been so busy with midterms, she hadn’t been able to make it to any of Leo’s recent gigs. But he was due on stage at Keeley’s between eight and eight-thirty. And there was no way she was going to the show dressed in her blazer and pencil skirt, gray and stiff. She’d worn it only because one of the oldest men on the entire faculty had been sitting in on her presentation, and Ella had heard about his penchant for professionalism. 

Ella thought she heard Chris yell some crack at her outfit after her, but she had already slammed the bedroom door. She stripped out of her clothes, throwing them in the hamper with disdain. She hoped it would be some time before she would have to wear anything of the sort again. Opening up a dresser drawer, she ran her eyes over prospective outfits for the night. 

Breathing a frustrated sigh, she pulled a grayish-purple babydoll dress over her head and went to sit down on the bed to tug on her fishnets. After having appraised herself in the mirror above the dresser, she decided her makeup was decent enough and touch-ups would be unnecessary. She was wearing far less than normal, anyway. She had a feeling the ancient history professor who sat in wouldn’t exactly smile upon thick eyeliner or dark lipstick. The need to change her look simply to please the man made her skin crawl, but she could see no other way out. He had once ordered a graduate student out from behind the podium because his shirt had a stain. 

The next time she was in class, though, she would be back in her grungy attire. Just putting on the fishnets made her feel more comfortable than she had been all day. She reached under the bed, grabbed her Doc Martens, and laced them up faster than she previously thought was humanly possible. 

She was about to go back out into the living room, prepared to return to the flooded streets at a moment’s notice. But then she passed the mirror again and, on second thought, decided she simply couldn’t stand not doing something interesting with her face. She swiped on some dark wine-colored lipstick and gave herself a tiny cateye with a trained, precise hand. Having done winged liner on and off since high school, she found practice had made her skilled enough to get it right on the first try about half the time. It was perhaps her greatest accomplishment in life. 

Grabbing her secondhand leather jacket, she trudged back out into the living room. She ran her fingers through her hair a few more times, untangling the remnants of her braid and smoothing down the dark blonde waves. 

“We wouldn’t have been late even if we left thirty minutes from now,” Matthew said, standing up with Mabel by his side. 

“Well, on time is late, and early is on time,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. 

Chris rolled his eyes as he also rose, from his armchair, and made his way to the coat rack. “Were you the hall monitor or something in high school?”

Jess snorted a laugh, his nose still buried in a Hunter Thompson book where he sat on the couch. “Far from it.”

“The hell’s that supposed to mean, Mariano?” she asked, furrowing her brows.

Smirking, Jess shut his book and tossed it on the coffee table. He went to grab his black jacket, while everyone mingled by the door, ready to brave the weather on the short walk to Keeley’s. “You threatened to stab me the first time you met me.”

“With a _butterknife_ ,” Ella countered defensively. 

The rest of the group snickered, exiting the apartment and filing down the stairs. 

“Ah, young love,” Chris teased. His pale cheeks were rosy, his blue eyes wide with excitement. Despite how much of a pain in the ass he could be, Ella felt her heart warmed to see how proud he was of his boyfriend. 

“I thought he was trying to rob the diner,” Ella continued, grabbing her umbrella again before they went out onto the grimy, damp streets. 

The rain had lessened slightly, to a chilly drizzle, but was still wet against her face. Jess took the umbrella from her, then interlaced their fingers with his free hand. She glanced up at him in thanks, and he winked in response. She could feel the scar from where the knife had sliced him the night they planned for their first date.

“Quite the menace, was he?” Matthew asked over his shoulder. Mabel had her arm linked with his, following along with the conversation. They had known her for a few weeks, but Ella suspected she hadn’t quite become comfortable. She was more timid than Ella expected for an actress, but she was truly sweet. Wore her heart on her sleeve, a quality Ella also recognized in Matthew.

“Oh yeah. Dennis was his middle name,” Ella smiled nostalgically. “Think if Sid Vicious and Elvis had a baby. Whose big moves are stealing gnomes and doing close-up magic.”

Chris laughed out loud, nudging Jess in the ribs. Jess blushed, glaring at Ella. 

“Aw, were you a little Criss Angel wannabe?” Chris crooned, mocking.

Jess rolled his eyes. “I was not. It seemed to charm Eleanor just fine, anyhow.”

“I was young and misguided,” she said wistfully.

“And you were tripping over your own feet at least once a week,” Jess chimed in. “Though, not much has changed on that front.”

Ella scoffed. “ _You_ worked at Walmart.”

“ _You_ bought a Train album!”

“That was _one_ time!”

“Once is plenty!”

Staring at him for a long moment, she finally uttered a defeated sigh. “You’re right. Train sucks.”

“Sure does,” Chris chimed in with an amused grin, then shook his head at them fondly and linked up ahead with Mabel and Matthew. 

“You’ve won the battle, Mariano,” she warned, pointing a finger at him. “Not the war.”

“Believe me, I know,” he replied, squeezing her hand affectionately, a smirk on his face. “How’d your presentation go today?”

Ella’s face lost a bit of its mirth and she shrugged, dejected. “Okay, I think. My advisor said I was talking too fast, but otherwise I did well. We’ll see.”

“I bet they didn’t know what hit ‘em, honey. I mean, we practiced like fifty times. You had it word-for-word last night,” he said, growing more earnest. “I’m sure you were amazing.”

She averted her eyes from him. “Maybe. I felt like I was getting suffocated up there wearing those clothes, though.”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t the worst outfit,” Jess said. “It had a certain _American Psycho_ thing going for it.”

“And that’s _good_?” she asked with a doubtful chuckle. 

“Not good, per say, but definitely interesting,” he replied, nonchalant. “I can’t believe you can do things like that. Just get up there and speak. I would pass out on the spot.”

“Well, then I’m glad you’ve got a job where you can be all _Phantom of the Opera_ and hide out in that tiny office all day,” she said with a grin.

Over the past few weeks, the guys had finally turned the back rooms of Truncheon, previously just storage space, into offices. Each one could barely hold a desk, but they were enough. Jess had already collected an impressive pile of books in one corner. The Hudson River sketch sat in a small frame next to his bulky, aged computer. 

“Yep. Counting my blessings,” he quipped flatly as they approached the bar. 

. . .

For once, the St. Patrick’s Day decorations hung year-round at Keeley’s were semi-appropriate, with the holiday having been only a week past. They shone, green and tacky, in the yellow light of the main room. Leo sat on a stool on the small stage, doing his final number. An array of instruments were set out around him: guitars, tambourines, a keyboard, a bass. His closing song was played on a ruan, a Chinese lute he’d bought as a teen on a trip to visit his grandparents, when he was just beginning to write his own music. Ella thought it was perhaps his versatility that made Leo such an incredible musician. As only a half-decent piano player, she couldn’t imagine learning something with strings or sticks. She had no idea how he had picked up so many different skills. 

Chris, Matthew and Mabel were all floating in the middle distance somewhere between buzzed and fully drunk, nursing local beers and watching Leo with thoughtful, glazed eyes. Both Jess and Ella sipped on club soda, sat in the booth across the table from their friends. No matter how much Ella insisted she didn’t care if Jess drank, he never really did. He thought it was a pretty good idea, considering his own mother’s history with addiction. And what was the point of being drunk if Ella wasn’t going to be drunk with him? It would be no fun if he couldn’t go on the ride with her, anyway. 

The crowd had been lively when they first arrived, tables packed and customers chatty. But as the evening wore on, parties left, congestion dissipated. A few lonely individuals sat solemnly at the main bar. Leo had a moderately receptive audience, though the band performing before him had a bit more notoriety and a larger fan-base. By the final number, only the five of them remained at their half-table, half-booth, looking on with pride and intrigue. Ella thought she had never seen Chris smile so big as he did at Leo’s gigs. The starry gaze was a bit saccharine, but most of the time it was tolerable, and even cute. 

“He’s really good,” Mabel said softly as Leo reached the instrumental.

“Isn’t he?” Ella whispered back across the table emphatically.

Mabel nodded, her bright brown eyes sparkling. “His voice kinda reminds me of The Smiths”

Ella’s smile widened. “I love them!”

“Oh, they were basically all I listened to in high school,” Mabel said, nodding in agreement. 

“Not you too,” Jess chagrined from beside Ella, his arm around her shoulders.

“What?” Mabel asked, raising one of her thick eyebrows. Ella wished she could have Mabel’s eyebrows. They seemed to be shaped perfectly, and didn’t even need to be filled in. 

“Jess thinks he’s too good for indie,” Ella said.

“No, I just never find myself in the mood to listen to some guy whine into the microphone,” Jess said, scoffing slightly. 

Ella shook her head in disappointment. “It’s poetry!”

“Even worse,” Jess retorted.

She rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t respond as Leo began singing again. Jess’s fingers ghosted over her shoulder up and down, making pleasant goosebumps rise on her freckled skin. As Leo’s voice rolled gently over the last few words of the song, Ella closed her eyes and felt the notes vibrate in her chest. Jess looked over and found her looking calm, far away inside her mind as she listened. He pressed a kiss to her hair and a tiny smile passed over her lips, though she didn’t open her eyes until the final chord finished its reverberation through the room. The five of them erupted in cheers and applause, which sounded scant in the nearly empty place. Leo smirked at them from the stage and gave a mocking bow. 

“They say the underground following is the most devoted,” he muttered into the mic, stripping off his ruan. Then, he looked up at the large clock across the room. “But since we’ve still got ten minutes left, why don’t we get secret musical prodigy Ella Stevens up here?”

Ella’s brow crinkled with confusion, and her smile faltered. “What?”

“You never told me about the piano thing! C’mon, take advantage of this keyboard,” Leo called over the mic. 

She glared over at Chris, who pretended not to feel her eyes on him. “What did you tell him?”

After a moment, Chris slowly craned his neck in her direction. “Who? Me?”

“Asshole,” she hissed under her breath, narrowing her eyes. 

“Hey, I was simply relaying what little interesting information exists about you,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. 

Ella ran her finger horizontal across her neck, a teasing threat. 

“We don’t have all night, Ella,” Leo continued into the mic.

“Yeah, let’s hear it, Ella. I’m sure you’re great,” Mabel said genuinely, leaning over the table, conspiratory and cheerful. The positivity would have been annoying if Mabel were not so down-to-earth. 

“Agreed,” Matthew chimed in.

Ella laughed bitterly, shaking her head. “No one wants to subject their ears to that, I promise.”  
  


“I don’t know, Stevens. I was pretty starstruck the _one_ time I heard you play in all six years I’ve known you,” Jess smirked, eyebrows raised. 

“Judas,” she spat at him, removing his arm from her shoulder. 

“If you can get up in front of two hundred people to talk about the effect of the lost generation on modern art, you can do this, Daria,” he continued, unphased by her grouchiness.

Heaving an ambivalent sigh, she listened to their persistent encouragement. Then, with one final huff of obstinacy, she stood from the table and marched up to the stage. She flipped them off behind her head as they gave hoots of satisfaction and Leo set the keyboard up at the front of the stage, with the stool and microphone. 

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” she whispered to Leo.

He gave a nod, humoring her. “Yes, I fear you.”

“Well,” she said sardonically, sitting down and watching as he descended the stairs. “In a minute, you’ll pity me. I did not inherit my mother’s talent!”

She felt her heart expand when she saw Chris give Leo a congratulatory kiss before they settled into their seats next to each other. Then, she rolled her eyes at herself for not sticking to her ill will, and dropped her eyes to the keys. They were shiny white and black, newer but less charming than the piano at Miss Patty’s. Her fingers were poised over the keys, and she swallowed dryly, remembering. She’d couldn’t quite place when the last time she’d played had been. 

Glancing up nervously, biting the inside of her cheek, she caught Jess’s eye. He threw her another wink and she let out a scoff at him. The longer she sat up there, the more her heart slowed. She straightened her back, felt herself regaining the old position. Resisting the urge to tug anxiously at her earring, she flipped for a moment through her mental catalogue. Then, she cleared her throat and let a small, wicked grin cross her lips. 

“Fine. But this is your funeral, everyone,” she quipped. “This song is dedicated to Chris, who is fucking _wrong_ about Joni Mitchell.”

A final, slight shake of her head and she launched into “Blue.” Her fingers were rusty and creaky, but the song flowed out of her as though she had just learned it. She couldn’t sing nearly as high as was necessary for an exact recreation, but she was getting at more of a tuned down interpretation. Her voice was raspy, and Jess was never surprised how much she identified with Stevie Nicks. Though recently, there had been more Amy Winehouse spinning on the turntable. And Ella knew she could never sound remotely like Amy Winehouse. 

The stage light was whitish and soft, and Jess could feel his heart do a skip at the sight of her. She wasn’t the greatest musical talent, but it wasn’t pure talent which made her breathtaking to him. It was the way her eyes shut and her voice lilted with emotion. How she lit up so wholly when she played. And how fearless she had always been, putting herself out there with not a care in the world for what others thought of her. No stage fright, only perfectionism holding her back. She was only ever completely herself, perhaps what he admired most about her. His intrepid artist, with dimples and green flecks in her eyes and messy hair and a fashion sense not quite like anyone else. Warmth filled his heart and his body and his mind, and he could only watch her with a tiny smirk on his face. And he had never felt so sure of anything before.

. . .

The cap of the red pen was clamped between her teeth, her back against the wall, Nietzche staring overhead. Suppressing a yawn, she placed brackets around a paragraph she liked particularly well. Her first read-through of the new book had taken almost no time at all, as she devoured Jess’s prose fervently. She’d suggested some revisions, added some comments, without being asked. Jess insisted she didn’t have to do that work for him, especially not for free, but she told him she simply enjoyed it. It reminded her of the days when they wrote notes to each other in borrowed texts, those which ended up sitting in a shared pile, all mixed together, in their bedroom. And he had only smiled in response. Once again, it had shocked him how invested she could be in art. Not that he would ever call his writing ‘art,’ especially how much he despised his first novel upon rereading. But Ella asked for the second draft once he had revised, offering her critical eye, if he wanted it. He did, of course. And she was nearly done. There were noticeable improvements, and several new sections. It was coming together before her eyes, and sometimes she wanted to tear up out of pride. 

Breeze seeped in through the draughty window, and she tugged the blanket up over herself a little more. Her impromptu performance at the bar, which ended with her flustered in the wake of everyone’s compliments even though she was aware she was nothing compared to Leo, had left her jittery and awake. Even after the presentation at school. Not exactly anxious, but charged with pseudo energy. She was only riding it until the crash. Jess wasn’t snoring yet, and she knew he wasn’t asleep, but dozing. Midnight had already passed into the early morning, and the rain was picking up again, pounding on the roof above them. Every so often, Ella looked precariously up at the water spot near the bedroom door. 

Sighing faintly, she turned the page, more semi-stream-of-consciousness insights after a perspective shift. She had to commend him on his recent experimentation. She hadn’t expected it. Her face softened as she read the next paragraph, a new addition to the draft. It was through the eyes of the main character as he watched a woman paint a mural on a nondescript city street. 

_Racing, racing, racing of his heart, beating against his ribs like footsteps at the sight of the woman. Eyes from bottom to top, from battered shoes to patterned skirt and button-up shirt, protected by a dirty, threadbare apron. Strangers, he thought, strangers everywhere with separate stories to tell, unaware of his thoughts or his feelings or his words or his face. She looked like she belonged, despite her complete uniquity. He couldn’t imagine looking so established in any place, so uniform in unconformity. He wondered who she was painting it for, the ghostly figure surrounded by dead flowers and trash, a vision of the post-industrial American wasteland. Not many people were likely to see it under the bridge, which looked like where teenagers would come to smash light bulbs and kiss each other with teeth clashing together and sweat out their last bit of rebellion. He wondered who had assigned her the location, if she had chosen it herself, if she was painting only for herself._

_The intensity in her eyes told him she could have been, green pools of vigor and concentration as he approached, boots rhythmic on the cracked sidewalk. A tragedy, he thought suddenly, staring at her near-finished creation, she was painting a tragedy and she knew it. She could feel it. He saw it not so much in her form as in the eyes of the ghost in the painting, hollow and desolate, with a single jewel of color in the middle. The rest of the piece was only in shades of gray, a hopelessness exacerbated by more small, foolish hope. He almost laughed under his breath, instead allowing his eyes to fall back on her as he passed around her, leaving considerable space between them. He didn’t want to interfere, break her focus, not that she looked as though she could ever be shaken by anything. Their eyes locked for only a moment, as she stepped back to regard her work. She didn’t smile, she didn’t frown, she only saw. She saw, and then she was out of sight again. And another story was behind him._

Smirking slightly as she read, she capped the pen again once she had finished. And she placed the manuscript on the bedside table neatly next to her. She switched off the last lamp and settled down into the sheets. Jess breathed deeply, stirring at her movements. She turned over on one side to face him, their noses only inches apart. 

“Jess?” she asked. 

“Hm?” he hummed, eyes cracking open.

“Can’t sleep?”

“I’m getting there,” he shrugged, though they both knew it wasn’t exactly the truth.

Ella nodded. “Well, I got to the part where he sees the woman painting the mural. And I have to say, I think I recognize the influences.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Maybe James Joyce wasn’t completely incoherent. It wasn’t serious, though. It was meant to be making fun of his adolescent emotionality, like Stephen in _Portrait_.”

“Ah, I think I’ve officially converted you,” she said, her smile growing wider. 

“I think you’re speaking too soon,” he replied.

“Agree to disagree.” Her tone was light and sincere as she continued, though her smile shrank. “Did you really love me when you first saw me?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s it, Chatty Kathy?” she asked, eyebrows raised in annoyance. 

Jess sighed. “Well, what do you wanna know?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to understand it,” she said, studying his face with narrowed eyes. If he knew the section she had just read, he shouldn’t have been surprised by the question. Besides, she had been wondering for a while. How someone who had been bitten by the world so many times could still believe something so romantic. In a way, she was envious, and in another way, she was scared for him. “Why did you tell me it was that day in the gazebo?”

He paused for a long moment, running his hand over his mouth. She could see his grandfather’s necklace peeking out from the collar of his t-shirt and glinting in the moonlight, which streamed through the window. He barely ever took it off. 

“Well, first of all, I knew there was no chance you’d run away with me if you thought I was crazy enough to believe in love at first sight,” he explained slowly, trying to ignore the embarrassed squirming in his stomach. “I was trying not to scare you off. Shocking, I know, considering what a _Romeo and Juliet_ stunt I was pulling.”

“He could’ve just waited to drink the poison,” she agreed, earning her a chuckle.

“And, at the time,” he continued, growing a bit more confident in his articulation, “I wasn’t even sure. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out when I fell in love with you. Eventually, I realized the reason was because I had been in love with you the entire time.”

She hummed, her brows furrowing inquisitively. “I just can’t imagine it.”

“Which is why the amount of poetry you read will never make sense,” he said. Then, after a moment more of gathering his thoughts: “And it’s not the same kind of love. It’s still love, but it’s not the same as what I felt after I got to know you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Breathing out a long breath, Jess searched again for the right phrases.

“I don’t know, Stevens,” he admitted, biting down on his lip for a moment. “Maybe it’s more like I knew I would love you. I saw you, and I knew I loved you before I knew why I loved you. Now, I know why.”

She nodded earnestly against her pillow, damp hair smelling of lavender. “Curiouser and curiouser, Mariano.”

“Not to the Hemingway fans among us,” he said.

“Well, Hemingway fans _are_ the biggest romantics. It’s a universal law,” she replied, voice growing heavier with fatigue. Finally, it seemed, the rush of the night was wearing off, replaced by a tranquil ease she hadn’t expected. Spring break was long overdue. 

“So I’ve heard,” he replied fondly. “I told you the first time we met, y’know.”

“What?”

“That I loved you.”

She furrowed her brows suspiciously, a smirk tugging at one corner of her lips. “I think I would’ve remembered that.”

“Well, I didn’t say it in so many words.” Jess’s eyes twinkled with teasing, and she scoffed.

“You did not.”

“Yes, I certainly did.”

“Shut up.”

“I’m serious, Daria.”

Her face lost its brevity as she saw he was, in fact, serious, despite how cocky he sounded. Playing the memory over in her mind, she was hit was nostalgia and confusion. Humming Stevie Nicks, spilling salt, empty threats, cleaning tables with Jess following behind her, never losing his wiseass remarks or his sarcastic grin. Then, after a moment, it hit her. _As you wish_. She had hardly noticed it at the time. Only a reference, leading to their first argument over movies versus books. The words Wesley had spoken to Buttercup in _The Princess Bride_ as a way of saying 'I love you.' She never even considered its meaning. 

She let out a breathy, surprised chuckle. Meeting his eyes again, she shoved his shoulder playfully and flipped onto her back. She stared up at the ceiling, noticing the water spot again. The raindrops pattered a steady beat. “Fuck off.”

“ _What_?” he asked, propping himself up on one elbow and tilting his head at her in amused askance. 

“Jesus. That is so...sweet and wonderful. And fucking cheesy. Makes me sick,” she said, though she grinned through her words. She sighed and shook her head slightly, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose as she giggled again. “I don’t know whether to murder you or marry you.”

His breath caught in his throat for a second, but he regained his composure before she opened her eyes again and smiled up at him. “Well, maybe meet me in the middle and let’s get our own apartment?”

“Really?” she asked. So much information was flying at her, she didn’t know which thread to latch onto. And, unbeknownst to Jess, she was fighting the lump in her throat. She may have been a realist, but she wasn’t heartless. And she wondered how long she would be able to hold off the tears that threatened to spill over. A deep, aching love spread throughout her. It almost made her dizzy with joy. _As you wish_ , he had said. It played over in her head suddenly, as though she had just heard it. 

“Yeah,” he said, averting his gaze hesitantly. “It doesn’t have to be right away. There’ll probably be more leases in the summer once all the students go home. But I thought...maybe we’d have room for a keyboard or something. An easel, too. And we could stop hearing Chris and Matthew argue over which place has the best burritos at three in the morning. What do you think?”

“We could get an actual shelf for all your books,” she said, holding her smile.

“Yeah. You could organize them whatever way, if you want.” Jess tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear as he spoke, then leaving his hand to rest on her cheek. “Or, I could do it. There is a method to my madness, y’know.”

“Okay, I’ll definitely need a couple months to decide whether to do color coordination or alphabetical order, then,” she said.

Jess chuckled. “Yeah, we’ll take some time. But...you want to?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do, James Dean,” she whispered softly. She placed a gentle hand on the back of his neck, and brought him in to place a sweet kiss on his lips. He smiled against her, nerves calming and body relaxing with her touch. 

As they broke apart, he laid back down on his side, drawing her closer to him with an arm over her waist.

“I love you, Mariano,” she said, eyes fluttering shut. 

“Love you back, Stevens,” he replied, thinking he may not be able to handle the pleasant butterflies erupting in his middle. 

She breathed in contentedly. “And your new book is the next Great American Novel.”

“I doubt the _New York Times_ will think so.”

“Well, I do,” she said simply. “You’re the fucking best.”

“It’s been said,” he quipped, finally shutting his own eyes. Their words had turned to murmurs, cozy and soft beneath the sound of the rain. 

“But, I especially love how humble you are,” she added, yawning against the back of her hand.

“Right back at ya,” he deadpanned.

Snorting a laugh, Ella shifted so she was flush against him, warm in the cold room. And, by the time the sun rose through the breaking clouds, the rain had stopped completely.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	33. The Infamous Jethro Tull Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visiting Stars Hollow once again, Ella and Jess help Luke with his custody battle and see the Spring Fling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains anxiety/panic attacks. Please read with caution. The descriptions of panic attacks in this chapter and in this fic are based on research and my own experiences. Everyone is different. If you need to talk, I am always here. I just felt Gilmore Girls always kind of ignored Jess’s trauma, and the after-effects it would have had on him.

Though Chris and Matthew had invited them out, neither Jess nor Ella had any desire to eat at some fancy restaurant on a Sunday night. It was under the guise of a celebration over the monthly Zine including an interview with someone who had once interned for Dave Eggers. Not that it was a small feat, but both Ella and Jess knew it was simply just an excuse for Chris and Matthew to go on an expensive double date. Often, the two called them frugal. And they called the two of them unnecessarily hedonistic. Whatever the case, Ella was glad to have the apartment for the night. Two days into spring break, and she was still only just bouncing back from the mid-semester exhaustion. 

She sat cross-legged in her pajamas on the couch, sketching, as the water on the stove began to boil. Once again, she was attempting dinner. Spaghetti, something simple, she’d told Jess earlier in the evening. She could totally manage it. She still couldn’t understand why her baking skills were never able to travel over into cooking territory. Just as she finished the lines around the eyes, the phone on the counter began ringing. Putting her sketchbook to the side, she rushed up to the counter and saw it was Jess’s cellphone alight with a number. 

“Jess Mariano’s phone,” she said as she opened the phone, hoping to answer in time.

“Ella?” the voice came through the receiver.

“Luke?” she asked.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

A smile came to her lips. “Hey, boss! How are you?”

Luke cleared his throat, hesitating a minute. “Oh, well I…”

“Jess is in the shower, but I can get him if you really need to talk,” she cut in, growing worried. Not only because she noticed the water on the stove was boiling over and hissing on the oven. She dashed over to the stove.

“No, that’s okay. I have no desire to speak to him while he’s any degree of naked,” Luke said gruffly.

Ella uttered a chuckle and she stirred the pot to lessen the overflow. “Well, that makes one of us.”

Only a heavy sigh came from the other side of the phone.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. As she broke the spaghetti in half, balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder, several noodles flew across the kitchen. A few landed on the burner and started to smoke instantly. “ _Fuck_!”

“What?” Luke asked, suddenly alarmed. 

Growling under her breath in frustration, she sweeped the noodles from the burner with a damp kitchen towel. “Nothing, sorry. The spaghetti caught on fire but it’s fine now.”

“ _Why_ are you trying to make spaghetti? You can hardly make toast,” Luke groaned knowingly. 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m broadening my horizons, alright? But that doesn’t matter. What’s going on?”

“Well, uh...you know April?”

“The name rings a bell, yes.”

“Well, Anna wants to move her to New Mexico,” Luke said, voice emotionless. “And I’m trying to get joint custody. The lawyer uh...he said Jess, or you, might be a good character reference. The trial, or whatever we should call it, is on Tuesday. If you can’t get here, that’s fine. They’re speeding up the process because they’re moving away so soon. You could just put it in writing, but I don’t know if it would get here in the mail. So, if you can’t, I completely-”

“ _Luke_ ,” she interjected. 

“Yeah?”

“We’ll be there,” Ella said with finality. “What time is the hearing?”

“Eight,” he answered.

Nodding, she stirred the spaghetti. Furrowing her brows, she considered the time. “Could we maybe stay over tomorrow night? Then, we can all go to the courthouse.”

“Really? Is Jess okay with that?” he asked. 

“Jess won’t hear of anything else, I promise. The Zine _just_ came out. The other guys will understand. We’ll call it a family emergency. And I’m on my spring break. It’s fine, boss,” Ella reassured him, face flushed over the steaming pot. 

“Are you sure? I mean, only if you’re sure-”

She sighed again, a long exhale through her nose. “Luke, I’m sure. Just hang in there. We’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll bring you some of this spaghetti, if you want.”

“I think I’ll pass,” he said flatly. 

“Noted.”

There was a long pause. “Ella?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

A sad smile ghosted over her face. “Don’t mention it.”

“Hey, it’s the Spring Fling, too. In case you guys need something to do tomorrow night,” Luke added, shifting the conversation away from emotions. 

A pang of nostalgia hit her, and she could smell the greasy food. “Oh, well, I was on the fence about coming up there before. But the _Spring Fling_? There’s the thing to seal the deal.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Luke grumbled, unamused by her sarcasm.

“Alright. Well, I gotta focus on this spaghetti, for the sake of public safety. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she said, brows furrowed in concern. 

“Yeah. Okay, Ella. See you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Luke.”

“Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, Ella flipped it closed and set it back on the counter. Waiting for the spaghetti to finish boiling, she tried to hum but couldn’t bring herself to. A knot sat in her stomach. She knew how much Luke loved April; she had seen it even through the few months she’d witnessed them together. And she knew how much April loved Luke. She wondered over how the girl would feel, if she were not allowed to see Luke ever again. Not exactly like her own mother’s death, but Ella could certainly sympathize. 

She was too deep in thought to hear Jess emerge from the bathroom, hair damp and still dripping slightly.

“Is something burning?” he asked, coming up next to her.

She jumped slightly and then huffed out a breath when he smirked at her surprise. “For just a second, it was. But, now, everything is under control.”

“Whatever you say, Stevens,” he teased, brown eyes twinkling. 

Pursing her lips, she finally took her eyes away from the water. “We have to go to Stars Hollow tomorrow.”

“What? Why?” he asked, his brow crinkling. 

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Luke is trying to get joint custody of April. The hearing is on Tuesday morning and he wants us to testify as references.”

“Huh,” Jess deadpanned, nodding slightly.

“If we get there tomorrow, we can make sure he doesn’t completely melt down during the dinner shift and then ride with him to the courthouse. Is that alright with you? If you can’t come, I could just-”

“Woah, Stevens. I’ll go. Obviously, I’ll go. Not like Matthew can’t babysit Chris all on his own for a couple days. He’s been doing it pretty much his whole life,” Jess said, pressing a kiss of reassurance to her cheek.

“Good. Just...making sure.” She bit at her thumbnail for a moment, nodding. “What if...what if he loses her?”  
  


“I don’t know,” Jess said, shaking his head. “But, at least we can try to help. Here’s hoping it’s not too _A Few Good Men_.”

“There’s the bright side, Mr. Sunshine,” she said, smiling weakly.

Jess smirked a tiny smirk, then grabbed the wooden spoon as the pot began boiling over, spaghetti spilling onto the glass top, once again. 

. . .

Misty March air seeped in through the cracked Station Wagon windows, the afternoon sun warming up the early spring day. Pollen and dust were stagnant in the air, flowers beginning to bloom in the Connecticut countryside. Television, “Marquee Moon,” played on the radio, Jess’s arm draped over Ella’s headrest. Hydrangeas were blooming, blue and purple and pink, on the sides of the road as they crossed over the edge of town into Stars Hollow. 

As soon as they passed over the border, Ella’s eyes began to itch, and she started sneezing into the crook of her elbow. 

“Jeez, Stevens. Bless you,” Jess said, eyebrows raised. “Are you getting a cold?”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, sniffling and blinking the irritated shine from her eyes. “Maybe it’ll make me more sympathetic to the judge.”

“There’s one way to win a case,” he chuckled.

“Hey, who am I to look down on a shortcut?” she said, shrugging lightly as she took the turn down Main Street. 

As they reached town center, their eyes widened. Parking was one of the chief worries to pop into Ella’s mind, but not the only one. Hay was stacked up every which way, forming a maze. Stray straws littered the empty spaces, bales piled ten feet high and taking up space on every single street. Hitting the brakes, Ella came to a stop on the edge of the strip, next to the bookstore. 

“What the hell is this?” Jess asked, flabbergasted.

Shaking her head, Ella was at a loss for words. Then, it dawned on her, and she groaned in frustration. “I forgot to tell you. Luke said it’s the Spring Fling this week. I guess now that means a hay bale maze?”

“Ugh,” Jess grunted, rolling his eyes. “The last time I was at this thing, Taylor almost called the cops on me because of my Jethro Tull t-shirt.”

She chuckled as she turned around, headed for the small parking lot with the dumpsters behind Luke’s. “Well, only time will tell what this year will bring.” Sneezing again, she sighed. 

“Besides hay fever, that is,” Jess added, teasing, tucking a strand of hair which had fallen loose behind her ear again. 

“We’re doing this for Luke, we’re doing this for Luke,” she muttered under her breath, feeling a headache already forming behind her eyes. 

. . .

She felt transported to the past as they entered Luke’s through the back door, leading into the stock room. It still smelled of tomatoes, dirt, pine; an odd mixture but not unwelcome. The room dark and dank, Ella took Jess’s hand and led him carefully through the random crates and boxes. In his other hand, he held their old duffel, containing both of their only business-appropriate clothes. Apparently, she would be wearing the pencil skirt again much sooner than she had hoped. Jess could already hear Luke ranting before they got to the main room, flashbacks to the consequences of stealing gnomes and baseballs and dry erasers. 

Lane passed by the stock room door and caught sight of them out of the corner of her eye. A panic filled her eyes and, immediately, she approached them, a dirty dish bin held in just one hand. 

“He’s on the warpath, guys,” she began, retreating into the dim room and glancing over her shoulder anxiously. 

“Well, hello to you too, Lane,” Ella smirked.

Lane’s face morphed into a delicate, rushed smile. “Right, sorry, sorry. How’s one of America’s most historical cities?”

Jess shrugged. “Historic.”

“Wow, your vocabulary had really grown since I last saw you,” Lane said, feigning amazement. 

A crash sounded, followed by a yell, from out in the main room. The door slammed and Ella couldn’t mistake the sound of a fearful yelp from some customer. 

“I think we can continue this love fest later,” Ella suggested, gesturing to the main room. 

“Agreed,” Lane said, turning on her heel. 

Jess and Ella followed her out of the stock room, finding the counter almost completely empty of customers. The tables were dotted with just a few customers, staring down silently at their plates, faces drawn in fear. Boots trodding heavily on the tiled floor, Luke was making his way back from the door to the kitchen. Caesar was nowhere in sight, and a thin cloud of smoke was billowing through the kitchen window. The front windows were a view of nothing but giant walls of hay. Nothing boded well. Ella glanced at Jess doubtfully, and he only gave a slight shake of his head in response. 

“Can I get you guys something?” Lane asked, returning to the space behind the counter. 

“No, I think I’d rather not risk it,” Jess said, taking a stool, placing the duffel on the floor next to him.

Ella hopped onto the seat next to him. “Says Mr. I-Live-On-The-Edge.”

“Even _I_ have my limits,” he replied. 

“I’m fine, too. Thanks Lane,” Ella told her friend.

A couple steaming plates appeared from the kitchen window, burgers blackened and fries soggy. Lane looked at them suspiciously, but placed them in front of Kirk, who sat on Jess’s other side. Kirk grinned and nodded emphatically.

“The gourmet experiments keep on coming,” he exclaimed, digging in with a fork and knife instead of his hands. 

Ella’s brow crinkled. “Kirk, that’s-”

“Don’t,” Lane warned. “It’s...not worth it.”

Perking his head up from his food, Kirk craned his neck to see the two of them. “Oh. You’re back. I’ve missed your pies, Ella. I hope Luke has rhubarb.”

“Kirk, we’re not...moving back here. We’re only gonna be here until tomorrow,” she said, head tilted in confusion. 

He narrowed his eyes, then turned to stare closely at Jess, who leaned back against Ella slightly. “You just _had_ to take her to Philadelphia with you.”

Jess was about to respond, before Ella jumped in again, tone vehement.

“Excuse me, Kirk, but _I_ moved to Philadelphia on my own to go to grad school. Jess just happened to be there.”

“The hand of fate, huh?” Kirk asked, unphased. “What a beautiful thing.”

Jess snickered, eyeing Ella to gauge a response. Instead of retaliating, her jaw tensed and she turned her head to the kitchen window. 

“Luke, we’re here!”

Raising his eyebrows, Luke reappeared from the kitchen. His sleeves were rolled up messily, his shirt splashed with grease. He didn’t look as though he’d been careful in the kitchen. A black baseball cap sat backwards on his head, the one he’d been wearing since he and Lorelai broke off their engagement. But Ella had heard, through her weekly phone calls with Lane, Lorelai and Christopher had divorced, breaking up once again. The constant romantic whiplash was beginning to make Ella dizzy. 

“Oh. Hey, guys. How was the drive?” Luke asked.

“Well, I don’t know about Eleanor, but that huge ball of twine gets more interesting every time I pass it,” Jess deadpanned, arms crossed over his t-shirt, elbows on the counter. 

Ella smiled thinly. “Jess is _thrilled_ about the Spring Fling, if you couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, I might’ve guessed. I mean, who could forget that Jethro Tull incident?” Luke replied. 

She was about to respond, but instead Ella buried her nose in her sleeve again and sneezed. 

“Bless you,” Jess said.

She sneezed again.

“Bless you,” he repeated, smirking.

A moment more, and she sneezed a third time.

“And one more for good measure,” Jess continued, increasingly smug. “Bless you.”

Luke furrowed his brows at Ella. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“The hay doesn’t agree with Rudolph,” Jess chimed in, smoothing a hand over Ella’s back. 

Blinking the wateriness from her eyes again, she shot Jess a look. “Bite me.”

“Just like old times,” Luke grumbled, going over to the register when two meek customers came up to pay. 

Catching her breath, Ella got down from the stool again. “I’m gonna go to Doose’s. Try to get something to handle this new reindeer look I’ve got going for me.”

“You want me to go with you?” Jess asked, almost hopefully.

“As much as I would love that, cutie, I think your existence would probably be a catalyst for Taylor’s flashbacks. I’ll be back in like ten minutes. I think you’ll survive.”

“That’s debatable,” he said.

She turned away and sneezed into her elbow yet again, growling under her breath in annoyance.

“Debatable for me and you both,” he added, smirking once more.

Flipping him off, she made her way to the front door, preparing to brave the wall of hay which was about to meet her eye-to-eye. 

. . .

“Don’t touch!” Ella exclaimed, exchanging a flathead screwdriver for a phillip’s head on the counter next to her. 

“Do you see me touching anything?” Jess shot back, rounding the counter to make his way to the dish pit. 

She snorted a bitter laugh. “You were getting too close. I think you just coming in this register’s dance space would be enough to break it more.”

“If you make one more _Dirty Dancing_ reference-”

“Need I remind you of the shower head?” she continued, ignoring his complaints.

He sighed heavily. 

“Oh, please, remind him of the shower head,” Luke piped up from where he was wiping off the red tables. 

“In January, the shower was leaking,” Ella began, straightening up from her spot tinkering with the cash register drawer. 

“C’mon, Elle,” Jess moaned from the dish pit.

“Jess, both Luke and I are privy to the swan attack. This is far less humiliating, I promise.”

“Fine,” he said, turning the boiling hot tap back on. Only a few more mugs and he would finally be finished. He was careful to avoid any stray kitchen knives. 

“The shower was leaking. I had class, but I said I would fix it when I got home. Because, somehow, Chris, Matthew, _and_ Jess are all completely devoid of home improvement skills,” Ella said. “Jess tried, which was so sweet of him. But then the entire shower head _and_ the faucet ended up coming off the wall. It took me four hours to get them back on.”

“Hence the register dance space,” Luke replied, biting back laughter. 

“Exactly.” 

“Hey, I fixed that toaster out there!” Jess shouted over the sound of the water.

“And it only took you six years to admit it,” Ella said.

“Shut up,” Jess retorted.

“There’s the charm,” she mocked. She pushed the small gold button, and the register drawer popped out silently. A bright smile crossed her face. “This might be the first time this hasn’t sounded like Janet Leigh since I started working here.”

She wondered in the back of her mind why Luke hadn’t fixed the cash register sooner. It was antique; maybe he thought a screeching drawer just came with the territory. Or, maybe it was because nearly every single repair he had done in the past few years was on either the Gilmore house or the Dragonfly Inn.

“I told you guys you didn’t have to work,” Luke said, rolling his eyes guiltily. He began flipping the chairs up onto the tables, stuffing his damp rag into his apron.

“For the last time, we wanted to!” Jess called from the back, wiping his hands on a stained dish towel as he finished up with the mugs.

“Well, you’ve done enough. I can finish closing. Go see the Spring Fling.” Luke came over and took the screwdrivers from Ella’s hand, putting them back in his toolbox and shutting it with a _snap!_ before she could protest.

“Oh, yes, it’s bound to get wild out there in the hay bale maze,” Ella quipped, going to grab her coat from the rack with Jess following behind. 

“You’re tellin’ me. Just go see it. Taylor certainly spent enough on it.” Luke went back to the tables, upturning the chairs rhythmically, as he had for so many nights and so many years, wearing the same thing.

“We’ll be back before midnight,” Ella said, shrugging on her leather jacket and tugging her long hair, half-up, half-down, out from beneath the collar. 

“And, now that we’re grown up, we can go get involved with as many ritual cults as we want while we’re out,” Jess added, grabbing Ella’s hand. 

“Don’t mention that in the deposition tomorrow,” Luke warned.

“It’s good you said something. Otherwise, I definitely would have mentioned it,” Jess shot back smugly.

As they emerged into the evening, the stars were just beginning to appear, Luke having closed up early at around eight o’clock. Ella looked around, trying to see any other way into the maze besides the opening just in front of Luke’s. She’d thought about popping into her old house, surprising Fiona and Adam after school. But, she’d gotten busy with the dinner shift and could see no physical way to get there in the dim light of the twinkly strings somewhere beyond the maze.

“How the hell do they pay for stuff like this?” Jess asked as they began strolling through the maze. 

“Beats me,” Ella replied, shaking her head. “This place makes no economic sense. I stopped guessing a long time ago, my friend.”

He hummed, eyes roaming over the seemingly endless yellow straw. “Tax fraud, you think?”

“I wouldn’t put it past Taylor,” Ella said, smirking.

“Oh, now how could you accuse a _sweet old man_ like that of such a crime?” he asked, feigning shock.

She shrugged, grinning. “Since he conveniently ‘lost’ the money for the bridge renovations and we had to start the whole fundraiser over again.”

“Y’know _I_ was the one who took that money, right?” Jess asked, thinking back to his first two weeks in Stars Hollow. 

“No, I meant the first time. I was like eleven,” she explained, feeling a pleasant night time breeze ghost through her hair.

“ _What_?” Jess chirped. “It happened before?”

“Yeah, and Taylor kept saying someone stole it. But I had a sneaking suspicion it was an inside job.” 

Breathing deeply, she could smell nothing but the hay. It seemed odd, considering the Spring Fling usually had booths with caramel apples and popcorn and all other sorts of junk. But, she was also just glad she could breathe through her nose again with the help of the allergy medicine she’d picked up at Doose’s, though her eyes were still a bit itchy.

“How very Watergate.”

“I’m telling you,” Ella insisted, only half-joking, “Taylor could be an evil genius for all we know.”

“It _would_ explain a lot,” Jess agreed, nodding. They’d taken many turns, and he figured they must be nearing the end. The carnival in town square was what he remembered as the main event.

“Yes, all the sweater vests would be perfect for establishing a mild-mannered cover,” she continued, speaking with her free hand. 

“Well, with that logic, Chris is also an evil mastermind,” Jess pointed out.

Ella pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “I think Chris is probably more of a Jekyll and Hyde situation.”

“I just love how much faith you have in humanity,” he smiled, pressing a kiss to her hair. 

She laughed, and was about to retort, when they turned a corner and she almost ran straight into Lorelai. Her stomach did a quick flip, and her hand tightened slightly on Jess’s. But then, her old instincts kicked in, and she plastered a small, polite smile on her lips. On Lorelai’s right side, Rory stood hand-in-hand with some blonde guy.

“Oh, hey!” Lorelai greeted them brightly, looking between them. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Only for today and tomorrow. Just taking care of some stuff, y’know?” Ella said, unsure of whether Lorelai would be aware of the custody battle. Then, she turned to Rory. “What about you guys?”

“Visiting. We just had to come down for the Spring Fling,” Rory explained. She turned to the man at her side, gesturing between him and the two of them. “This is my boyfriend, Logan.”

“Oh, hi,” Ella said, shaking Logan’s hand. 

“It’s a pleasure,” he grinned slyly, one dimple on his left cheek. “Strong handshake.”

“That’s what I’m famous for,” she replied. “I’m Ella.” Tilting her head to Jess, she broke hands with Logan. “And that’s Jess.”

“Hey,” Jess said shortly, also shaking Logan’s hand.

Logan’s smile didn’t even falter in the wake of Jess’s tight demeanor. “Nice to meet you, Jess.”

“So, how about this hay bale maze? Gives you _Labyrinth_ vibes, doesn’t it?” Lorelai asked, smiling warmly.

“Yeah. All that’s missing is Bowie,” Ella agreed, nodding. 

Intertwining their fingers again, Jess leaned into Ella’s side slightly against the chilly spring breeze. 

“I wouldn’t mind seeing him in that costume,” Lorelai continued. 

“Agreed,” Rory chimed in. 

It occurred to Ella how long it had been since they had seen each other. Rory’s hair was longer and straighter, with side bangs and a redder tone. And her clothes seemed different, as well. Kate Spade and Coach and other brands Ella couldn’t have named. As far as first impressions went, she couldn’t quite figure out Logan. His smirk seemed constant, but not genuine like Jess’s. It wasn’t endearing, as though he were about to laugh at a private joke. Instead, it was almost smarmy. She wondered in the back of her mind what he was trying to sell her. Seeing Lorelai, though, was welcome. Images of movie nights and sleepovers and quiet afternoons reading flashed across her memory. Ella could recognize Lorelai just fine in the memories; Rory was not as easy.

“Not sure it’s worth it for how long we’ve been wandering around, though,” Lorelai added. Ella could see new, blonde-ish highlights in her hair. A pang of guilt hit her; with as much Lorelai had done for her, she should’ve checked in more. Even if she and Luke were still, inexplicably, on the outs. 

Jess furrowed his brows. “ _What_? I thought we were near the end.”

“Far from it,” Rory said.

“What about the caramel apple stand and stuff?” Ella asked.

“The budget wouldn’t allow it. Not after Taylor bought all the hay in Connecticut,” Lorelai said, gesturing to the maze around them. “This is it.”

Ella scoffed, shaking her head. “I’ll say it again. Evil mastermind.”

“What?” Logan asked, laughing.

Before she could answer, Ella’s nose began to tickle and she caught another sneeze in the crook of her elbow. 

“Gesundheit!” Lorelai exclaimed.

“Well,” Jess began, looking between Ella and the other three, “we should probably start making our way to the other side. Seems like sneezy’s allergy medicine is wearing off.”

“Anyone who starts naming the other six dwarves will be in grave danger,” Ella warned, sniffling and blinking harshly.

They bid each other goodbye and were about to part ways when Rory suddenly spun around and called Ella’s name.

“Yeah?” Ella asked.

“Do you wanna maybe...go to lunch at Weston’s tomorrow? If you’re still gonna be in town,” Rory offered, her voice soft and hopeful. Her blue eyes were large in the moonlight. 

Ella blew out a breath, considering it for only a moment. “Sure. Meet you at noon, alright?”

Rory nodded, and was soon whisked away again by Lorelai and Logan. They turned a corner and were masked by the hay. 

. . .

She had never been to the Hartford courthouse, and it shocked her how much the place smelled like a dentist’s office. Chilly and plasticy and devoid of all human feeling. Painted in white with mahogany accents and bright lights, the building had supposedly been standing since before the Salem witch trials. Or so the plaque on the front of the red brick structure read. The minute hand on her watch ticked on silently, as nine o’clock rolled around. Ella had tried sketching, but couldn’t keep her focus on the portrait of her grandmother surrounded by sunflowers. Jess was halfway through a worn Bukowski volume, scribbling penciled notes in the margins, despite the faded writing already there. Ella’s head rested gently on his shoulder, dozing. Neither of them had slept especially well, nervous over the deposition. And neither of them were willing to take Luke’s bed again, and had squeezed onto the old brown couch. They considered the old twin bed, but decided falling off wasn’t worth it. 

Ella was nearly asleep, her sketchbook shut and stuffed into her purse next to her, when she felt Jess shifting beneath her. His form tightened, and his breathing had become labored. Immediately, Ella’s eyes shot open, as she recognized the noise. She turned to find the novel shaking in his hands, his eyes wide and watery as his breathing began to pick up. 

“Whoa, Jess, hey,” she began calmly, taking the book from his hands and placing it absently on the bench behind her. She faced him fully and reached out, but then hesitated. “Can I touch you?”

He swallowed dryly, trying to fight the tears blurring his vision. One second, he had been underlining a sentence; the next, his entire being became rigid and his heart was pounding. Not long after, he felt his throat tightening. Harsh shivers rolled through his body. He simply couldn’t control his erratic breathing.

Then, his eyes flitted to her face, the crease between her brows, and he nodded slightly.

“Okay,” she replied. Grabbing his wrist with a gentle hand, she brought his palm to her chest, the fabric of her blouse soft beneath his fingers. “Just breathe with me, cutie. Everything will be fine.”

“Pretty optimistic, Stevens,” he grumbled breathlessly, raising a doubtful eyebrow. 

“Desperate times, Mariano. C’mon, just breathe with me,” she said softly, breathing in a long breath through her nose, exhaling out her mouth. 

Beneath his hand, he could feel the rise and fall of her chest. Though he felt a little silly, he focused on the earnestness in her face. A few pedestrians passed by them, tossing uncertain glances their way, but Ella paid them absolutely no mind. She only focused on Jess. His cheeks were flushed as he ran his free hand over his mouth, nodding at her again as he finally began to mimic her breaths. Air hitching in his throat, he had to try more than a few times to steady himself. 

“Good job, James Dean,” she smiled, watching him eventually begin to relax. His cheeks were glistening in the fluorescent light, and she wiped them dry with her thumb. “You okay? I can find you some water.”

“I’m pretty sure all they have here is burnt coffee,” he said, voice still uneven. The stench of stale coffee permeating the air in the whole building only added to the dentist office vibe. 

She gave a breathy chuckle. “Hey, anything’s possible. My powers of persuasion are pretty strong.”

“I’m fine,” he insisted, averting his eyes from her. His cheeks burned hotly.

“Hey,” she said, tone serious once again, as she placed a hand on the back of his neck, “are you sure? If you can’t do the deposition, you can just write something down. I’m sure I could just go in.”

“No, I’m fine,” he said, eyes widening emphatically. “Don’t worry, Daria.”

“Impossible,” Ella said, dropping her hand from his neck and intertwining their fingers instead. 

Jess cleared his throat. She saw his eyes flicker nervously over to the door of the room Luke had disappeared into over an hour earlier. Jess almost raised a hand to run through his hair, but then stopped as he remembered they were supposed to look professional in front of the lawyers. He felt fidgety and anxious. 

“You’ll do fine, cutie,” she told him.

He faced her again, trying to force a confident smirk on his face. But he couldn’t bring himself to. “I know, just...like you said. What if he loses her? Or if-”

“‘You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that,’” she interjected.

He stared at her curiously for a moment before he ventured a guess. “Chuck Palahniuk?”

“Roald Dahl,” she answered.

“Huh,” he chirped indifferently.

Her eyes lingered on his distracted expression, watching his gaze be drawn again to the door to the deposition. He pursed his lips, a wistful, guarded look.

“Jess,” she started warily, her voice a sigh, “did you ever think about seeing someone? I mean, is this only the second time-”

“Can we please not talk about this, Doctor Laura?” he snapped quietly. Not unkindly, simply impatient. Ella hadn’t previously realized just how nervous he was for the deposition, considering how neutrally he’d reacted when she’d first told him about it.

She sighed again through her nose, jaw tensing. But she reminded herself where they were, and who they were. She told herself not to push too hard, not to worry about him getting scared and running off again. But still, a familiar fear threatened to rise in her throat. She swallowed thickly, then gave a slow nod. She pressed a quick kiss to the back of his hand and disentangled their fingers. 

“Okay, James Dean,” she said flatly, handing him back his book. “To be continued.”

“Thank you,” he replied, flashing her a weak, half-hearted smile.

She tried to quiet the uneasiness whispering in her mind.

. . .

Weston’s looked much the same. The outdoor tables were adorned with vases of gerber daisies, fluttering in the light breeze. Bright sunlight warmed up the afternoon. Rory came back to the table with a tall coffee in one hand and a tea in the other. A tin of pound cake sat in between them on the frilly lace tablecloth, two forks beside it. Back in her plain purple dress and leather jacket, Ella felt more comfortable. And the judge had, thankfully, ruled in favor of Luke. Ella’s heart was alight with joy at just the thought of the verdict.

But an odd sense of deja-vu filled her. After Saturdays swimming in the Stars Hollow Community Pool, she and her father would come to the bakery, sunburnt and exhausted. She would get an apple tart and he would get a slice of chocolate satin pie. Just the two of them while her mother and brothers were at home playing board games. It had been their place, a father and a daughter, before everything fell apart. Her mind wandered to Jake for only a moment, wondering where he was and what he was doing. She wondered if he ever remembered their post-pool bakery visits, sitting outside with towels wrapped around them, damp bathing suits sticking to their bodies.

But then Taylor rode by, in the front seat on a bus of tourists, blasting his words through a megaphone. She snapped out of it. Offering a grateful smile to Rory, she took a sip of her tea. “Really, Rory, you didn’t have to get my tea.”

Rory waved a dismissive hand as she sat down. “It’s fine, Ella. Consider it making up for those last few birthdays when I wasn’t there to force presents on you.”

Ella smirked through a chuckle. “Okay. Thank you.”

“So,” Rory began, leaning in, conspiratory. “Tell me everything.”

“Well,” Ella said, shrugging and glancing over to her left. She forgot that her vision of the lush green square would be obscured by the wall of dry yellow hay. Having dosed up again on allergy medicine, she was glad to soon be leaving. She snickered under her breath, then turned back to Rory. She had a small smile on her pink lips. For a moment, Ella saw her as she had when they were teenagers. Bookish and shy, similar to Jess in a lot of ways. “I’m pretty busy with grad school. My students are all so fucking smart though, so it’s honestly not all that hard getting things to stick with them.”

“Yeah, Lane told me you graduated early,” Rory nodded along, almost jealous.

“Just took a bunch of summer classes and stuff. Luke gave me so much time to study. I wouldn’t have been able to do it otherwise,” Ella shrugged, spinning the tea mug around as she spoke. 

“And how’s living with Jess? Above the publishing company, right? Is it Truncheon? I can’t remember. It seems like so long since Luke told me about it,” Rory said, giggling through her words. 

Ella’s smile widened. “Yeah, Truncheon. They sell books and local art. Even some of mine, actually. But we live with Chris and Matthew, Jess’s partners, above the store. They’re...interesting. Matthew can do these crazy, _Good Will Hunting_ math problems in his head. And Chris has, like, forty Red Bulls worth of energy everyday, but he hardly ever drinks caffeine. He just has a natural, endless supply. Kinda reminds me of your mom.”

“Sounds eventful,” Rory chimed in.

“That it is. But...it’s really fun. The city...it’s so lively. Everyday I walk outside and it’s a whole new place,” Ella said, blushing slightly at the sentimental words as she spoke them. But it was true. Returning to Stars Hollow always reminded her how much she enjoyed Philly. “But, what about you? Let’s hear about this Logan character.”

“Oh,” Rory began, looking down at her drink. “He’s good. We’re good. He’s really smart and we have a lot in common. And he’s really well-traveled. We’re great. He’s great.”

Eyes widening marginally, suspiciously, Ella nodded at Rory’s babbling. “So, you’re great, I hear. Alright. He makes you happy?”

“He does,” Rory answered, taking a sip of her coffee. Then, after a moment of pause: “It’s just…”

“What’s up, Ror?” Ella asked softly, furrowing her brows. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Rory finally met her eyes again. “It’s just...I got offered this job at a newspaper in Rhode Island. And it’s solid and steady. My mom thinks I should take it.”

“That’s awesome, Rory! You’re gonna be at the _Washington Post_ before we know it!” Ella exclaimed.

Rory offered her a weak smile. “Yeah, but, I also applied for this big scholarship. Only like five people get it every year. But it could be huge, and Logan thinks I could go for it. But, he also just lost about a million dollars and quit his job at his father’s company.”

“Hm,” Ella hummed, trying to keep her face expressionless as Rory continued. They were nowhere near close enough anymore for Ella to criticize her boyfriend.

“And then, the other day, I found this ring...”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Ella said, leaning back in her chair.

“Yeah,” Rory sighed. “And I have _no_ idea what to do. I don’t know when he’s gonna ask me, _if_ he’s gonna ask me, if he’s gonna want to follow me to Rhode Island, and...I mean, do you wanna spend the rest of your life with Jess?”

Taken aback by the question, Ella bit the inside of her cheek and paused. “Um...I...I hardly believed in love before I met Jess. Sometimes change doesn’t happen all at once. But...I mean...I would always rather be with him than not with him. If that means I want to spend the rest of my life with him…then, yeah. I do.”

Rory tucked her hair behind both her ears, shrugging. “I guess it’s not the same type of thing. I mean, you’ve been the Catherine to his Heathcliff forever.”

“Nothing’s perfect, though, Ror,” Ella said. She thought back to a few hours earlier in the courthouse, Jess’s stony expression. She could practically see the scowl he was sporting back the diner, where she’d find him after Weston’s to drive back home. “I mean, marrying someone doesn’t solve everything. Living together doesn’t solve everything. Jess and I argue. We fight.”

“Yeah, I think we all remember what it was like when you two worked at the diner together,” Rory scoffed nostalgically. 

Ella snorted a laugh. “Believe me, I know. Jess and I don’t love each other because it’s easy. We don’t communicate the best sometimes. He’s not the chattiest, if you remember. And I’m not the most flexible. He turns the heat up in the apartment _way_ too high. And, sometimes, I swear he’s got the worst taste. But we promised each other a long time ago we would always try for each other. That’s all it is. We try for each other.”

“You sound like a Nicholas Sparks novel,” Rory said, giggling once more.

“I do _not_!” Ella exclaimed, a blush creeping further up her skin.

“Oh, really?” Rory asked doubtfully. “Tell me what you love about him, then. Tell me the little details about the man who melted the icy Ella Stevens.”

Ella snorted again, shaking her head. “It wasn’t some sexist _Taming of the Shrew_ situation. He’s just...he’s my best friend. That’s it.”

“Come on, you have to get back to Philly soon, don’t you? Humor me for the sake of this advice session,” Rory continued.

Rolling her eyes and groaning dramatically, Ella shifted in her seat and sighed. “Fine. For old time’s sake, Rory. He...he’s such a good writer. He writes like nothing I’ve ever read before. It’s thoughtful and deep and...I don’t know. He does that thing where he bites his lip when he’s nervous. And he’s probably the biggest romantic I’ve ever met. I used to think it was absurd, but now it’s just cute. He rubs circles on my back sometimes, for no reason. He just…always likes to be touching. And, as much as that man loves words, it’s the actions. He doesn’t need to say something for me to know...I guess. He’ll show me instead. Does that make sense?”

After a moment of gaping, Rory burst out in laughter. “I knew it was serious. I didn’t know it was a Tennyson poem.”

“Alright, alright, enough,” Ella grumbled in embarrassment. “The _point_ is: do _you_ want to be with _Logan_ for the rest of _your_ life?”

Rory’s face fell slightly, and she could only manage a non-committal shrug.

As the breeze blew past them again, and Ella watched Rory’s expression falter, she felt her stomach fill with nerves. She hadn’t realized it before, quite how committed she was. When she imagined her life, Jess was always there. It wasn’t even a question. She didn’t know exactly when she’d decided he would be a permanent fixture, if he wanted. But apparently she had. And no matter how frustrated she was with his refusal to talk about his panic attacks, or the anxiety which had been following him for, perhaps, years, it didn’t matter. It had been a tough trip for him. She just wanted to get back to him, to make sure he was alright. To see if he was feeling better.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul! Also, I'm actually a little unsure about this chapter, so your thoughts would be very helpful.


	34. A Patti Smith Envelope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella and Jess move into their new apartment.

A newspaper ad circled in red ink had led them to the cozy one-bedroom four blocks over from Truncheon and six blocks from campus. It was only late April, earlier than Ella was expecting for them to find something. But she had finished finals, had booked gigs working at the art camps at the college over the summer. She had a few weeks off to make art, and hopefully help out in Truncheon. After touring the place, it felt right. An excited tightness in her stomach. Jess, too, had squeezed her hand in elation as soon as they walked through the door. The place had built-in bookshelves on the far wall, the bedroom on the other side. Ella didn’t believe in signs, but even she could agree it was as close to perfect as they were going to get.

Luke had offered to help without even being asked. Chris, Matthew, Leo, and Mabel were all participants to different degrees of willingness, and they hardly needed any more bodies. But Luke insisted the minute Jess had told him the moving date over the phone. It was likely he needed some sort of distraction since April had moved to New Mexico anyway. She wasn’t going to be back until the summer. And it seemed neither Luke nor Lorelai had come to their senses about each other yet.

He rolled up to Philadelphia in his truck two hours before they expected him. He claimed moving wasn’t moving if there wasn’t a truck to help out. Packing up all the stuff in the apartment was easier than Ella expected, just as it had been when she moved out of her childhood home. Jess could be cluttered sometimes, but nowhere near the level of Chris, and most of Jess’s belongings consisted of old band t-shirts and marked up books anyway. Ella, likewise, had most of her records stuffed in the back of her car. The dresser fit in Chris’s SUV after a fair amount of squeezing stuff in. The bed was the real challenge. It turned out Luke’s truck wasn’t such a frivolous vehicle, after all. 

A drizzle was just beginning to fall from the gray, cloudy sky as they finished moving all the boxes inside. The apartment, on the second floor of some ancient building, was not exactly up to twenty-first century standards. The pipes were old and cobwebs gathered in the corners. A splinter or two jutted out from the worn down wood floors, golden brown under the dim lights. But the bohemian rug and many lamps they’d scouted out from the thrift shop a week earlier were already proving helpful. Boxes, labeled with mostly Jess’s scrawled, cramped handwriting, were stacked high in the corner of the living room, others gathered on the cracked tile of the kitchen counter. 

Ella blew the stray hairs away from her eyes, otherwise pulled back in her black bandana. Her bangs were growing longer, and she was just becoming able to fully tuck them behind her ears. Roses of flushed color bloomed on her cheeks, her skin hot and sticky. Chris had already sprawled out on the dark gray couch, Leo on the arm. The couch, too, was secondhand, bought for ten bucks at the ReStore off the interstate. 

“You really should be paying us,” Chris huffed, throwing his arm across his eyes.

Ella scoffed from where she was helping Matthew and Mabel unpack the kitchen. There was actually not much to be done, as Jess and Ella were planning on getting most of their supplies in the following days. There were a few mugs, bowls, spoons. “Consider it payback for the amount of times I’ve made you pie.”

“I was under the impression those were ‘no strings attached’ pies,” Matthew chimed in. 

“Or, at most, ‘friends with benefits’ pies,” Mabel added. 

Ella rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m taking advantage of all of you. I’m eternally in your debt. But I think we got everything, if you guys wanna get outta here.”

The four of them exchanged glances, eventually coming to a consensus they were exhausted enough to leave and retire to the cold pizza in the fridge at Truncheon. Ella suspected they were excited to have their own rooms for the first night in forever, as Chris had already made work of moving his stuff into Jess and Ella’s old room, before they had even finished moving out. She gave them sweaty hugs and salutes goodbye, finishing with unloading the meager contents of the new fridge. 

“Hey, Jess, we’re outta here!” Leo called.

Jess’s head appeared from the doorway to the bedroom. “Good. Better to save yourselves now before World War III breaks out in here.”

From beyond the bedroom door, Luke could be heard grumbling obscenities and fighting with the new bed frame he was struggling to put together. 

“See you on the other side, then,” Matthew said, smiling. “Also known as Monday.”

“We’ll see if I make it until then,” Jess shrugged, offering them a small wave. “Thanks, guys.”

“You are  _ not _ welcome,” Chris grunted, trudging out the door. 

Mabel gave Ella one last hug before exiting the apartment, shutting the door softly behind her. A grin broke out on Ella’s face. She and Mabel had gone on more than one lunch together, had even gone shopping once. It was new and Ella was still a bit worried the timid woman would be scared away from a friendship with her, but they were slowly getting to know each other. 

As Jess continued grappling with Luke, who went on grappling with the bed frame, Ella finished with their groceries. The kitchenware was more or less unpacked to a decent level. The books were next on her list, followed by the records. Rounding the corner of the counter into the living room, she stopped short of the book boxes. 

She put her hands to the hips of her jeans. There were a few water spots on the popcorn ceiling, reminding her of Truncheon. The air smelled cozy, but more of lemon Pledge than anything else. Someone had dusted the built-in bookshelves in the initial flurry of unpacking. During the walk-through of the place, Jess had pointed out the corner next to the couch as the perfect spot for an easel. Looking over it, with familiar furniture moved in, the place seemed more real. Less like a dream for the two of them. The terrace past the small sliding glass door was empty, but she thought maybe they could fit a few chairs. It wasn’t as though the view was spectacular, just a vision of the city street below and the other apartment building opposite. But it was more than enough for two people who had both lived out of their cars for extended periods of time.

An odd sense came over her, one of total novelty. Never before had she had a real say in her home. Her parents lived in the blue house in Stars Hollow before she was born, Lane had moved into her house with Zach and Bryan long before Ella started sleeping on the couch, the apartment above Truncheon had been a simple convenience to everyone involved. But she and Jess had chosen the apartment together. They had admired the cheap price, the proximity to work, the odd seashell tiles in the bathroom. The place seemed to have been built before the contemporary requirements of architectural uniformity. It had a mind of its own inside: a leaky sink and a brick exterior and shag carpet in the bedroom. Not altogether a surprise, considering it was in the artsy housing district near the campus.

“Dammit!” she heard once more from the bedroom. 

Heaving a tired but cheerful sigh, she crossed her arms over her Clash t-shirt (borrowed from Jess) and entered the bedroom, to the left of the living room and kitchen, opposite from the tiny bathroom. Luke and Jess were both hunched over the metal frame, trying to hold both the headboard and the footboard up and attach the middle section. Their faces were angry and red, frustration radiating off of them. 

“Hey, so, it’s past seven,” she announced, eyebrows raised at their trouble.

Jess jumped slightly, his back to her, at the sound of his voice. The footboard slipped out of his grip. 

“Oh, for the love of-” Luke began.

“It’s fine,” Ella interjected calmly, going over and placing a hand on Jess’s upper back. He panted but said nothing as his uncle continued fussing. 

“Where did you even get this? There’s no damn instructions!” Luke said, readjusting the hat on his head. 

“The discount store,” Jess answered, glaring down at the frame and over at the mattress, which stood leaning against the wall near the dresser. “Not all of us have diner money to fall back on.”

“Anyway,” Ella continued, “I bet we could all use some food. Jess, maybe you could drive Luke down to that place on Birch and get some sandwiches? I can finish with the bed.”

Luke shook his head. “Ella, I don’t think-”

“She probably can,” Jess interrupted dejectedly. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s those sculpture classes. But she can fix anything. Not just showerheads and cash registers.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Luke said, raising his hands in surrender and leaving the room. He went to grab his coat from the messy pile by the front door. 

Ella stifled a laugh. “My god, he’ll never change.”

“Why is he coming with me to get the food?” Jess asked under his breath.

“Because I think he’ll have a stroke if he doesn’t stop with this bed. And he doesn’t know where the place on Birch is.  _ You  _ do,” she explained, giving him a peck on the cheek before going to try her hand at the bed.

Shoulders sagging with fatigue, Jess gave a begrudging nod, then glanced back over his shoulder. “Fine. Hopefully he’ll be less Vesuvius and more Mauna Loa by the time we get back.”

“Not everyday you hear a good volcano metaphor,” she quipped, assessing the middle section of the bedframe and deciding to take it apart altogether. 

“I know. Imagine how dull your life would be without me,” Jess shot back, a small smirk tugging at his lips despite his frazzled state. “Turkey?”

She nodded. “You know me too well, James Dean.”

“Agreed,” he said with a teasing laugh. 

“Fuck off,” she replied through a chuckle.

Jess’s smirk grew as he turned on his heel to leave. “Love you back, Stevens.”

. . .

The windshield wipers of Jess’s rust bucket screeched against the glass as he rolled down Birch Street, away from the sandwich shop. A white paper bag full of subs sat in the passenger seat atop Luke’s lap. In one hand, Luke held a bouquet of deep red tulips. Jess hadn’t remembered the florist shop where Ella had worked the previous summer was right down the road from the sandwich place. He’d stopped in for the bunch of blooms as they waited for their order to be filled. The plastic wrapper around the bouquet crinkled in Luke’s fist as he braced himself, Jess rounding a damp corner. 

“I told you we should’ve taken my truck,” Luke grumbled.

Sighing, Jess fought to keep his jaw untensed. “My car’s fine. It’s driven us across the country more than once.”

“Before or after it broke down on the highway and Coop had to have it towed back to Stars Hollow?” Luke asked, his voice tired and strained. 

“Not sure. I know for a fact it was after you stole my car, though,” Jess retorted, eyes on the slick roads. He wished the radio was on, but the memories of Luke whining about his album choices were still too recent in his mind. 

Heaving a large sigh, Luke gave a shake of his head. “Fine. I give up.”

“Thank you,” Jess muttered.

“You’re welcome,” Luke shot back irritably.

But then he looked over at Jess. His hair was no longer greased, his clothes fit better, his eyes were clearer. Most of the time, his brow was no longer drawn in anger or his face a scowl. Even his posture was different; straighter, brighter, more self-assured. And then he thought of Ella. She looked much the same as she had during her last few weeks at work, with her wide smile and loud laugh. The smiles were more frequent, though, and she seemed so relaxed around her friends. Even around Rory she had sometimes seemed a bit nervous to Luke, as though she were worried over a misstep. 

Luke couldn’t contain the small grin on his grizzled face. “I’m really proud of you, Jess.”

Snorting a laugh, Jess spared Luke a quick glance before turning back to the road. They were only a few minutes away from the new home, but Philly traffic was never reliable, even on a Saturday. “Let’s put away the pom-poms for now.”

“I’m just sayin,’” Luke began with a shrug, “got your own company, your own apartment with Ella. You really seem to be doin’ great.”

Jess gave a short, humble nod, but took a long pause before he spoke another word. “Lorelai proposed to you, right?”

Luke’s brow crinkled. “Yeah?”

“But you proposed to Nicole?”

“Yeah.”

Humming under his breath, Jess gave another nod. Red brake lights glowed in the rainy evening darkness. “When did you know...how you wanted to propose?”

“Jess, are you gonna propose to Ella?” Luke asked, eyes going wide and smile growing. 

“Never said that,” Jess answered nonchalantly, shaking his head. “Just never really delved into that part of your personal history. Figured I’d ask. Maybe I wanna get to know you better, uncle dearest.”

Rolling his eyes at Jess’s old patterns of behavior, Luke didn’t let his smile waver. He looked down at the bouquet in his hand. “Well, considering it was an impulse cruise ship marriage, not a lot of thought went into it. It just sort of happened. If you’re asking me how to propose to Ella-”

“Which I’m not.”

“-then I’d say she loves you and she’ll say ‘yes’ no matter what. And I’d say that you know her better than anyone in the world, and you shouldn’t...second-guess yourself. Do what feels right.”

“And did an Elvis impersonator marry you two on that cruise?” Jess continued.

Luke bit back another sigh. “No, wiseass. It was a regular minister.”

“Huh,” Jess chirped wryly. “You learn something new everyday.”

. . .

Patti Smith spun on the record player as the rain grew stronger outside. Though it was a pain in the ass to unpack the record player, Ella decided it just wouldn’t truly be home without the grace of music on the first night. Luke had left about an hour earlier, though they insisted he could stay over. He said he was nervous enough leaving Lane and Caesar in charge of the diner for one day, and he didn’t want to be late for the morning shift the next day. It made Ella roll her eyes, but eventually she gave up trying to convince him. It wasn’t as though she expected Luke to change his ways. The tulips sat in a mug of water on the kitchen counter, to be placed in something fancier and on something fancier once they actually had a makeshift dining area. For the moment, only the big pieces from the old place and the bed were filling up the small apartment. Ella had to bite her lip to keep from laughing at Luke’s face when he saw she had put the bed together all by herself, finished before they got back with the sandwiches. An expression of extreme frustration had slowly melted into pride. Both were memorable.

Between Jess and Ella, who sat cross-legged on the floor on either side of the coffee table in the living room, was a half-eaten pie. One of the few leftovers from Truncheon they had lugged over to put in the fridge before an actual grocery run. The apple crust was a bit soggy, but the filling was surprisingly good cold. She found herself so wholly content as they sat together: eating pie, listening to records, in the dim lamplight of the first place which was solely theirs. It all struck her with a force she wasn’t expecting. She chuckled to herself as she grabbed another forkful, eating away at the half they had not even bothered to cut but just dug into instead. 

“What?” Jess asked through a sweet mouthful, furrowing his brows at her.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Doesn’t this all seem a little...surreal to you?”

“Does what seem surreal?”

“Just...we have an apartment together. And you own a business. And I only have a year left of grad school. I just...sometimes I can’t believe it’s happening. I can’t believe it turned out the way it did. You don’t feel that?” she asked, lowering her eyes sheepishly.

He cracked a small, crooked smirk. “I don’t know. I always just sort of thought I’d end up where I’d end up. And here I am. With you. Not a bad place to be.”

She rolled her eyes, a blush coloring her cheeks. “I know about your Kerouac philosophy. But just...when you first met me, did you ever think in a million years this is where we’d be now?”

“I didn’t know exactly where we’d be. But, I knew I’d land somewhere. I didn’t know if I’d land with you, but I wanted to. Maybe it’s a little surreal, but it doesn’t surprise me,” he explained, leaning his elbows onto the scratched wooden surface of the table with arms crossed. 

Snorting a laugh at his insouciance, Ella finally locked eyes with him again. “It just feels a little too good to be true, I guess. I mean, you go to school your whole life, you work towards something your whole life. Once it happens, once you’re near the end...I just never thought it would actually happen. I don’t know what’s next.”

She tugged at her earring with her right hand. Jess noticed the chipped blue polish on her nails, though they weren’t bitten down. He couldn’t quite decipher her mood. Not that she seemed sad or distant, but he could tell she was having a hard time articulating herself. And he could tell she was letting an old worry creep up on her; she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He allowed his smirk to grow into a full smile and dropped his fork into the pie tin. “C’mon, you’re gonna figure it out. You know you are. I’m the directionless one. You’ve always been able to do anything. You’re plan girl.”

Ella gave a mirthful scoff. “You’re not directionless, Jess. And I’m  _ not _ plan girl. Rory was always plan girl. I was try-to-make-it-to-the-finish-line-without-tripping girl.”

Jess hummed thoughtfully, about to reply. But she spoke again before he had a chance to.

“I thought you had a thing for her, y’know,” she said, taking another bite of pie.

“Who?”

“Rory.”

“Really?” Jess asked, and he couldn’t hide the bewildered amusement in his tone. “When was this?”

She shrugged and narrowed her eyes for a moment in memory. “Just when you first got to Stars Hollow. I mean, you hated Dean, and you like a lot of the same things, and you seemed to get along with her.”

“No. It was pretty much always just you,” Jess said, shaking his head slightly. “Maybe we liked a lot of the same stuff, but...I didn’t ever feel like she...got me like you do.”

“Oh, she didn’t, Kurt Cobain?” she teased, raising her eyebrows. She put her fork down in the tin next to his, her stomach full. Her eyes were beginning to get tired, her body starting to ache from the day of moving. She was glad the bed was put together.

He raised his hands in joking defense. “Hey, I know it sounds cheesy, but it’s true. Remember that night she was tutoring me?”

“The night you crashed her car? Yeah, it rings a bell,” she replied.

“Yes, that one,” Jess continued, smiling sardonically at her. “We were talking about the future. And she kept getting on me about how I had to do better and I had to go to college, just like she did, or else I would have no life.”

The smile which tugged at Ella’s lips was slightly bitter but mostly fond. “Sounds like Rory.”

“Everyone in Stars Hollow thought I was the antichrist. Maybe Rory didn’t, and maybe we were friends, but she definitely wasn’t okay with who I was then. Maybe she thought, with enough  _ Schoolhouse Rock _ videos, she could get me to shape up,” Jess continued, taking small glances out the sliding glass door as he spoke. He could see a sliver of the city lights past another building on the right side. It was better than the bland brick wall and the dumpster which served as his view from the room in Truncheon.

“Hey, she is an amazing tutor. If there was anyone who could’ve converted you to the Ivy League conveyor belt, it was her,” Ella said.

“Yeah, but you and I both know school was never the way I was supposed to go. It was the way you were supposed to go, but you didn’t try to get me to be anything other than what I was,” he told her, voice light but eyes sincere.

Ella felt her heart skip a beat, but shrugged again. “I don’t know. I definitely tried to get you to ditch those CDs.”

“The exception that proves the rule,” he replied. 

“Speaking of, I figured out how I’m gonna organize the books,” she said, tossing a look past his shoulder at the empty shelves.

“How is that a ‘speaking of’?” he asked, a confused smirk coming over his face.

“I’m doing genre, then alphabetical order by author. The way you used to do your CDs when we were in high school,” she explained.

“Oh.” Jess had his eyes trained on her, watching as she undid her bandana and ran her fingers through her mess of blonde hair. He chewed on his bottom lip. Then, after a pause filled only with Patti Smith’s poetry, he blurted out: “Y’know, you were the first person I ever said ‘I love you’ to. The only person.”

Her gaze softened and she nodded. “Me too.”

“No, Stevens, I mean  _ anyone _ . Not just Nora Ephron kind of love. Not family either,” he said, most insistent, though he did his best to keep his tone nonchalant. As though it were just a run-of-the-mill fact about his past.

She stopped for a moment, brow crinkling. “Your mom never said it to you? Not even hippie dippie Liz?”

“No. We weren’t that kind of family. She wasn’t that kind of mom.”

A crease of concern deepened between her brows. Every time it had come up before, she assumed both of them meant romantic love. Familial was a different beast. But she had to remind herself never to assume with Liz, no matter how she seemed. Jess had arrived when Liz was a binge-drinking nineteen-year-old. 

Before her brief interlude in the ‘love doesn’t exist’ frame of mind, before her mother’s death, Ella’s world had been filled with ‘I love you’s. Mostly from her mother, in her soft voice, with her delicate perfume. Some from her grandmother, and even from her father. And after, Lorelai had sometimes said them in passing. Rory, too. The three words, no matter how commonplace they could sound, were important, she knew. Especially when they weren’t uttered, or stopped being uttered.

She opened her mouth to say something, then bit the inside of her cheek and hesitated. Rising from her place, she rounded the corner of the coffee table and went over to him. Jess tilted his head at her in askance, but she only answered him by sitting down in his lap, straddling him as their noses drew only inches apart. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and simply hugged him. For a moment, he sat motionless, his muscles tense. It wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting, if he’d been expecting one at all. But then, he circled his own arms around her waist. They sat there, breathing slow and clinging to each other, for a long time. Patti Smith droned on around them, enveloping them. 

Eventually, she pulled away and ran her fingers affectionately through his hair. He looked up at her, unsure of what to say. Fortunately, she took the lead, gaze unwavering as she spoke in her quiet, husky voice.

“Jess, you’re the fucking best. You’re my favorite person. And you’re gonna be hearing ‘I love you’ every day for the rest of our life,” she assured him, matter-of-fact. “So, I suggest you get used to it.”

“Right back at ya,” he replied after an awestruck pause, just before their lips met.

In spite of the fuss over the bed frame, Jess and Ella ended up spending the night on the worn rug in the living room, nearly naked underneath the first throw blanket they could find in the boxes around them.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	35. Really, Marcia?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella return to Stars Hollow once again during graduation season.

Dropping the bags again in the apartment above Luke’s almost made Ella want to laugh out loud. Maybe she shouldn’t have made such a big deal of leaving the diner to move to Philadelphia; she felt like she almost couldn’t escape Connecticut. The trip, this time, was planned in advance, however. Both Adam and Rory were graduating, and Jess’s new sister had been born only a week earlier. Much was to be done, many people to visit. It made Ella feel slightly overwhelmed, the prescribed familial nonsense. Going back to Stars Hollow was easier when she could just casually pop into Luke’s or her home, and then drive away in the Station Wagon with Jess in the passenger seat and Liz Phair on the radio whenever she felt compelled. But the graduation had a scheduled time, Rory’s graduation party had a scheduled time. There was no getting out of it. 

For a moment, she had thought about staying back in her old room in the little blue house. She felt as though they were taking advantage of Luke staying over at his place as often as they did. But then it occurred to her that she had no real idea what her room looked like anymore. The few times she’d been over in recent years, she hadn’t even ventured past the threshold of the small hallway, her door the second on the right. She felt maybe it was better to leave the room the way it had been in her memory. She was not in the business of reopening old wounds for no reason other than curiosity. 

There was also the issue of her father. Fiona had been cagey at best about Jake on the phone. Would he even show up to the graduation? Surely he would. Even Noah had traveled back home, for the first time in years, though without his fiancé. She was a nurse, and hadn’t been able to get away from the midnight shifts. He was a paralegal, though, and had been able to swing a Saturday afternoon graduation. But, still, there was a gnawing feeling in her stomach. A fear he would simply not show. He had been at her high school graduation, with his robotic hugs and teary eyes and the usual detached way about him. It hadn’t been warm and fuzzy, but he had been there for her. He had clapped as she crossed the stage. And, as far as Ella was concerned, Adam deserved more than she ever got from Jake. Adam called often, and seemed to get along rather well with Fiona, but remained flighty about their father. She could count on him changing the subject every time Jake was brought up. 

“Hey! Eleanor,” Jess said, breaking her from her reverie. 

She blinked harshly and jumped at the sound of his voice. Slowly, she turned her gaze away from the view of the window above Luke’s kitchen sink. Town square was decorated with florals, and the troubadour stood playing an upbeat, folksy tune on one of the corners. And, as she thought about her family, it had all struck her as a bit plastic. It seemed impossible for so much heartache to happen to her while living in a place like Stars Hollow, but it had. In spite of the sunshiney smiles and the constant offerings for help. Probably why she got along with Jess so well, who understood more than anyone she had ever met what it was to feel a pain she could truly recognize. Luke, too. She wondered at how many people milling down on the sidewalk were concealing all of their hurt for the sake of maintaining a positive, cheerful facade. The farther away the years took her from her upbringing, the more reasons she felt she was better off somewhere other than her hometown. She had never quite been able to polish her outward mold, could never keep it all under wraps. Instead, she ended up cursing out kids who tried to steal random shit from the diner or punishing herself through constant schoolwork and lack of sleep, all to keep her problems from making it from her mind to her mouth. And, most of the time, she had slipped up eventually. Once more, her father came to her mind. He hadn’t been able to wear a convincing mask, either.

“...yeah?” she asked, then looked down to realize the glass she had been filling with cold water from the tap was overflowing onto her hand. 

Quickly, she shut off the sink and sipped carefully at the drink, until it was back down to a manageable level. She switched it to the other hand and shook off the wetness, though it hadn’t felt unwelcome after having just come in from the May heat. Jess smirked quizzically at her, from where he stood at the fridge. They were meant to have a late lunch and then go over to Liz’s house and meet the baby, Doula. Despite how much Luke was making fun of it, Ella couldn’t say she hated the name. 

“Jeez, Stevens. Where’d you go?” Jess’s voice was lilted and smug as he pulled some leftover sandwiches from the fridge. Luke had instructed them to finish off whatever diner cast-offs they could find. It reminded Jess of his teen years, tense dinners with Luke at the small kitchen table, eating stale food which had been prepped but never actually ordered. And he felt an odd, surprising jolt of nostalgia. But his face didn’t show it.

She shook her head at herself, placing her glass down on the table and grabbing the cutlery as Jess put the leftovers out on the table buffet-style. It reminded her of the way he arranged a meal on her kitchen table the night they’d watched the prom scene of  _ Carrie _ together, when he’d brought her a care package because she had a migraine and then refused to admit to it later. And, for the most fleeting of moments, she was in the past and they were the people they had once been. A fond smirk tugged at her lips as she sat down, plates and forks in hand. 

“Nowhere,” she replied finally, her voice a sigh. Before Jess could ask anything further, she gave him a pointed glance as she piled some cold mashed potatoes onto her plate and continued. “You sure you’re okay going to Liz’s house today? We could always wait until tomorrow morning, then we could have an excuse to leave and go get ready for the graduation.”

He seemed to consider the idea of a moment as he took his first bite of meatloaf, then shook his head. “No. Let’s just rip the bandaid off.”

“That’s the spirit when you’re going to see a new baby,” she quipped. 

“I can guarantee the baby will be easier to handle than Liz and TJ, no matter how much she cries,” Jess grumbled, looking down at his food. 

Ella bit the inside of her cheek and leveled him with her eyes. Each time they returned to Stars Hollow, he seemed to get more anxious about it. At first, it was because the entire town had hated him as a teen. But it got much worse when Liz moved there. She thought it strange how much everyone seemed to discount how Jess felt about this, how much Luke complained about her. How much they expected Jess to get over what he was feeling and play dutiful son. It reminded her of the way she felt she needed to treat her own father after her mother died. Though the sexist bullshit about her being the ‘woman of the house’ had also played a part. She knew how Luke felt about family, how he would always show up for family regardless of circumstance. Maybe Jess was the same way, loyal to a fault. But maybe it was only for his chosen family. Maybe the rest of it was more because of all the outward pressure he faced. 

She reached over and ran a hand through his hand, smoothing it out. For a moment, she thought of saying something, but decided it wasn’t the right time to start a conversation about Jess’s childhood, or the lingering effects he still wouldn’t acknowledge. Not right before seeing his mother. She was trying hard lately to be patient, despite the way his eyes became guarded at the mention of his new sister or his mother, or the increased frequency of his nightmares. It was getting worse before her eyes and she didn’t know why. But Jess was Jess. And he wasn’t going to see it until he was ready to. It almost physically pained her, the effort of swallowing down the words, but she bit her tongue nonetheless.

He offered her a lazy, lopsided smile in return.

. . .

His grip on her hand was tight as they made their way into Liz and TJ’s house, just as gaudy and eclectic as Ella remembered from the baby shower. She might’ve even found it charming if it weren’t for the screaming color of the decor. The place smelled of burnt toast and sour milk, and Ella was instantly glad she and Jess had chosen to eat beforehand, just in case Liz asked them to stay for dinner. The scent was overpowered only by the strong perfume Liz was wearing, which Ella couldn’t ignore as Liz pulled her in for a big hug of greeting. 

“Come in, come in,” Liz said in her high, sing-song voice as she led them down the front hall and into the living room. “She’s just waking up from nap!”

The room was littered with toys, empty bottles, blankets, story books Doula wouldn’t be able to read for years. But it was sweet. Ella could see how much they’d been preparing, planning. For a second, she was relieved about it, but then the feeling mixed with a distasteful sadness. Jess had never specifically addressed his bedtime routine as a child, but Ella was fairly positive Liz had never read him  _ Goodnight Moon _ . She gave his hand a final squeeze before disentangling their fingers and sitting down on the paisley patterned couch. Liz lifted Doula up from the bassinet in the corner by the rocking chair. Ella could barely see the baby beneath the patchwork quilt she was swaddled in. Doula fussed for a moment, and Liz smiled at the two of them apologetically. 

“She needs a change. I’ll be right back!” she said, retreating back into the bedroom. “Make yourselves comfortable!”

“Okay. Thanks,” Ella replied cordially. She looked back at Jess as his mother exited the room. “You okay?”

He shrugged, his eyes surveying the clutter. “I guess so. It’s just weird still. All of this.”

Ella hummed, nodding.

“And I’m not really used to the whole baby thing yet. I’ve never even held one before,” Jess said, slightly sheepish and slightly curious. He crossed his arms over the Metallica logo on his worn t-shirt. He’d taken a half day working at Truncheon before they left for Connecticut, and was always happy to change into less professional attire after his shifts. 

“I know, but it’ll be easy. Unless TJ pops out and sings that song the frog does in  _ Looney Tunes _ . Then is the only instance when you’d be even slightly at risk of dropping her,” Ella assured him, leaning back into the overstuffed couch. 

She’d gleaned from their conversation the night before that his inexperience with children was also not helping his nerves. The only time she’d ever recalled Jess interacting with kids for any real length of time was the one Thanksgiving she’d brought him to meet her family. But even then, she’d been surprised how easily he’d wowed Erin with his card tricks, and played along with her jokes. Not something she’d exactly expected from the boy who wore a battered leather jacket and a constant scowl and a scarred heart on his sleeve. 

“ _ Why _ do you always worry he’s gonna do that?” Jess asked, cracking a smile for the first time since they’d walked in. 

“I told you! He sang it to me one time when I was working and he was hanging out at the diner. He was trying to figure out what song to serenade your mom with,” she explained, eyes wide and utterly serious. “I was just wiping down the counter, minding my own business, and he just appeared, like, right over my shoulder.”

Jess rolled his eyes at the story, remembering when Ella had first told him about it over one of their phone calls, back when they were hundreds of miles apart. “Well, it doesn’t seem like he’s here right now.”

“I didn’t think he was in the diner when it happened,” Ella countered, her voice jokingly grave.

Jess chuckled but didn’t have a chance to respond as Liz reentered the room. A large smile stood out on her face, the baby dressed in a soft punk onesie in her arms. Doula squirmed around a little and cooed, but didn’t seem altogether unhappy. 

“Ready to meet your little sister, Jess?” Liz asked, coming over and preparing to put Doula in Jess’s arms before he even had a chance to answer. 

“Guess so,” he muttered hastily, eyes widening. 

“Just be careful with her head,” Ella offered, watching as Liz hovered over her son, placing her daughter’s head in the crook of his arm.

Jess was surprised at how naturally his other arm moved to cradle her. She felt so light, it was as though he was holding nothing at all. Her skin was slightly flushed from the warmth of the quilt she’d been napping in, and he could feel the heat against his arms and his chest, through his t-shirt. His heart fluttered around anxiously in his chest, and he couldn’t help the slight trembling in his hands, but he was pretty sure he had a good grip on her. Liz straightened up again, looking down at the two of them. Jess almost couldn’t take his eyes off the baby, embarrassed at how awestruck he was. Ella’s nieces were the youngest kids he had ever been in contact with. He had never met someone when they were only a week old before. 

“Isn’t she something?” Liz said, hands on her hips. “She looked a lot like Danny Devito when she first came out, but I think she’s finally getting past that early ugly baby phase.”

Jess hummed in absent acknowledgement, but said nothing. Doula had thin wisps of blonde hair, and pudgy, rosy cheeks. Her fingers were curled into small fists, her legs scrunched up. He wondered vaguely if she was going to fall back asleep, since it seemed she couldn’t keep her eyes open for very long. She smelled like rash cream, but he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed at it. 

“Yeah, she’s beautiful, Liz,” Ella answered, though her gaze went back and forth between the baby and Jess. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d seen his eyes so clear and full of wonder before. She’d been too young to hold a newborn when Adam arrived, but she remembered the feeling of holding Erin as a baby, in the hospital just hours after Julie had given birth to her. It was certainly a unique feeling, and she felt her heart swell at the thought of Jess getting to experience it. 

Glancing back at the kitchen for a moment, Liz once again gained a frantic tone in her voice. But, after having known her for so long, Ella knew it wasn’t unusual. Liz was the kind of person who put her coffee cup on the top of her car while unlocking the door, and then drove away without remembering it, the mug shattering and coffee splattering on the road behind her. 

“Damn, I was just makin’ a bottle when you guys got here. TJ usually does that stuff, but dinner got a little burned. He had to go get some Plan B takeout. Let me finish with the formula,” Liz said, making her way back towards the opening into the kitchen. “You guys okay with her for a second?”

“Yeah. Fine,” Jess answered, surprising Ella. 

Just as Liz left again, Doula opened her eyes once more. But instead of letting them shut, she kept them open. She stared up at Jess, her large brown eyes meeting his and doing their best to focus on his face. 

“She’s got a withering stare,” he murmured.

“Isn’t so hard, is it?” Ella shifted a little closer to him, leaning over his shoulder to see Doula. "You didn't have to be nervous."

“Yeah, maybe not,” Jess said quietly, a small smile on his face as he glanced over at Ella.

. . .

Back when she graduated high school, there had been rain. The day before, they’d had to move the ceremony preparation into the small auditorium. People were squished inside, standing up in the aisles once the seats ran out. Ella’s valedictorian speech had been a bit more than daunting with a bunch of irritated family and friends facing her, those who had traveled miles to Stars Hollow only to be packed into the smelly room like sardines. She supposed having graduation outside in the gazebo was better. The class size was small at Stars Hollow High, but it was best when everyone still had personal space. The one downside was the heat. Connecticut was not usually up near ninety degrees in late May, but a pocket of dry air was currently sitting atop the state, moving at a glacial pace. 

Ella and Jess had sat sweating on some lawn chairs. While Julie and her husband Michael, who still lived in the same small house in New Britain, were on Ella’s other side, trying to get their girls to sit through the ceremony to moderate success. Annie’s wild curls were blowing in the scorching wind as she sat on her father’s lap, reading the small storybook she’d brought with her. Erin, on the other hand, just about to cross over into adolescence and middle school, had folded her arms sullenly over her chest and rolled her eyes at nearly every name called up to receive a diploma. Ella didn’t imagine she would’ve reacted much better at that age, being forced to sit out in the heat for hours only to watch Adam be handed a piece of paper. Noah had been on the far side of their row of seats, in his plain clothes, looking stoic as usual. He would be leaving just after the fanfare ended. He’d stayed at a motel the night before, with perhaps even less desire to stay in the little blue house than Ella had.

The valedictorian speeches were actually pretty good, but long. Adam would’ve been giving one if he hadn’t stopped trying in every one of his classes except for those involving science during his senior year. Ella respected the decision though. She had never found any application for calculus in adult life, no matter how hard she had worked at it in high school. 

Fiona and Jake had shown up, together for some reason, ten minutes late. No seats were left near Ella, or anyone else in the family. Instead, they were relegated to the far back row. Her brows furrowed at their entrance, but they didn’t get close enough to Ella for her to say anything. Jess had brought her arm around her shoulder as she watched them pass her without so much as a look, and took to whispering jokes about their old principal in her ear. It didn’t work as well to distract her as he had hoped, but it had still earned him a laugh or two, which was far from nothing. 

As they all stood around afterwards, under the shade of some trees behind the old gazebo, congratulating Adam, Ella couldn’t shake the thoughts of her parents from her mind. She wondered how different the day would be if her mother had lived. Would her parents still be together? Probably. Despite the problems they hid, the ones Ella had become more aware of the older she got, they did love each other. No matter how much her mother laid down and took Jake’s outbursts and his alcoholism, and no matter how much her father ignored Sophia’s distracted nature and inability to decide on anything in life, they loved each other. And, the thought struck her suddenly, that maybe everything would have been easier to swallow if they hadn’t loved each other so much. It would have been easier to accept how quickly everything fell apart, and how quickly her father had found someone new to fill the hole in his heart. 

“You okay?” Jess asked, close to her ear as they lingered amongst the group, pictures having been taken and pleasantries having been exchanged. 

“Just peachy,” she replied, unable to hide the bitterness in her voice. 

“Yeah, I can see that,” he said, pressing a kiss to the crown on her head and giving her hand another squeeze. It hadn’t taken him long to gather how angry seeing her father again had made Ella. He wondered when the last time had been. 

“I could do without the  _ Brady Bunch _ performance,” she whispered back to him, gesturing to the members of her family as they continued with fabricated niceties. 

“Really, Marcia? But you’re the oldest sister! That means you would’ve been prom queen!” Jess teased.

She rolled her eyes and snorted a laugh. “Whatever, Wally Logan.”

Approaching the two of them with narrowed eyes, Erin still had her arms crossed over her frilly dress. She had more than one bandaid on each knee, and she had already pulled the french braid out of her red hair. Speaking mostly to Ella, she sized Jess up.

“I remember him,” Erin said suspiciously.

A confused, bemused grin crossed Ella’s face. “Yeah. At Thanksgiving. You were like five. You remember that?”

“I have a really good memory,” Erin said, shrugging, confident and casual.

Ella chuckled at the flippant ten-year-old. 

“Photographic, huh?” Jess asked, eyebrows raised. 

“Pretty close,” Erin replied, then focused her eyes back on Ella. “Did you ever figure out his middle name?”

“Sure did,” Ella answered, smirk growing. “You wanna hear it?”

“Of course,” Erin said. “I know for a fact it’s not Santa Claus.”

Jess rolled his eyes.

Ella leaned down and whispered in Erin’s ear. Straightening up again, Ella watched Erin’s gaze roam over to Jess doubtfully.

“What kind of a name is Cosmo?” Erin asked.

“Listen, my mom’s into crystals and-” Jess began, but Michael called Erin over for something.

“Gotta go,” Erin said, and skipped off towards her father without another word. 

“C’mon, Elle,” Jess groaned, a blush creeping up his neck and warming the tips of his ears.

She chuckled, nudging him with her shoulder. “Sorry, Cosmo.”

Before Jess was able to retort, Fiona and Jake approached them. Considering they were split up, the peculiarity of the two of them arriving together wasn’t lost on anyone, not that it would ever be mentioned. At a closer proximity, Ella was surprised to see how different Jake looked. His hair was greyer, he was skinnier, there were dark circles under his eyes. Whatever has been going on in Maryland didn’t seem to be conducive to health. She had to bite back her sigh at the sight of him. Fiona was more or less the same, though Ella had visited her more or less recently. She couldn’t remember the last time she had laid eyes on her father. The shadow of the man he had been when she was a child was almost completely gone. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest.

“Hey, kids,” Fiona said, giving Ella a quick hug. 

“Oh, hi,” Ella chirped, surprised at her instant warmth.

She also hugged Jess, shocking everyone involved. 

“So good to see you guys! How are things in Philly? Adam tells me you just got a new apartment?” Fiona asked, buzzing and bubbly. Her black hair was cropped close to her head. Ella remembered how she used to let apprentices at the beauty salon experiment on her locks during breaks. 

“Yeah, we’ve been there about a month,” Ella said. “It’s only a few blocks over from school. I can walk there.”

“How nice,” Fiona smiled.

“It is,” Jess agreed.

Shifting uncomfortably from foot-to-foot, Jake finally interjected. “Hi, Ellie.”

“Hey, dad,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek. 

“Young man,” Jake greeted Jess coldly, nodding.

Jess gave a curt nod and a thin-lipped smile in response.

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again, filled with distant, amiable chatter of other families and shrieks of congratulations. Out of the corner of her eye, Ella could see Adam was already off with his friends. Soon, they would be headed to dinner and Project Graduation. Part of Ella was glad Adam didn’t want a big day of family celebration. No one would’ve survived any extended period of false positivity. 

“I see you’ve got tattoos now, Ellie,” Jake said, looking down at the tulip on her arm, exposed in her spaghetti strap dress. “Your mother would’ve called that sinful, you know.”

The corners of Ella’s lips tugged up into a resentful smile, the words dripping with venom as they left her mouth before she could stop them. “Well, it’s a good thing she’s dead then, isn’t it?”

Both Fiona and Jake’s jaws dropped and it seemed all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air around them. Ella’s stomach dropped and she brought her hand over her mouth just after she said it. Her hazel eyes grew to the size of saucers. Immediately, Jess took her by the shoulders and began leading her in the direction of the diner, blurting out excuses. 

“Hey, nice to see you folks, but we have to get to Rory’s graduation party tonight and it’d be pretty rude if we were late so…” he trailed off, stopping once they were far enough away, leaving Fiona and Jake flabbergasted and speechless.

“Oh my god,” Ella muttered, chewing at her thumbnail for the first time in what felt like forever. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I was gonna try to be nice if he came, because...at least he showed up, right? Fuck. Oh my god. Jess. Oh my god.”

“It’s okay, Daria. Just try to relax,” Jess breathed, steering her towards the diner as she instantly began melting down. 

“I can’t relax, Jess! Don’t fucking tell me to relax! Did you hear that?! Did you hear what I just said?!” she muttered hastily. “ _ Fuck _ me! Fuck! Every time I see him, my fucking mouth-”

“Hey,  _ language _ !” Luke scolded her as they entered the diner, the bell jingling jovially above the door. There were only a few customers scattered around, the mid-afternoon lull.

“God, Luke, I thought age was supposed to negatively affect your hearing!” Ella snapped as Jess directed her to a stool and sat her down, hopping up on the seat next to her. 

“Joe Pesci here is having a bad day,” Jess explained shortly as Luke shot Ella a bewildered stare. 

“What happened?” Luke asked, arching a brow. 

Ella heaved a great sigh and placed her head in her hands, elbows on the counter. “Bigmouth has struck again. And apparently she has even less of a filter now than she did in high school!”

“ _ Right _ ,” Luke said, increasingly confused. 

Running a hand up and down over Ella’s back as she continued fuming, Jess gave Luke a dejected glance. “Green tea?”

A shadow of realization passed over Luke’s face. “Comin’ right up.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul! I know this chapter probably seems light on dialogue, but it is more of an exposition for the next chapter, which will include Rory's graduation party. Just bear with me! :)


	36. An Orwellian Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella and Jess go to Rory's graduation party, then return to the bridge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains discussion of depression. Please read with caution. The descriptions of depression in this chapter and in this fic are based on research and my own experiences. Everyone is different. If you need to talk, I am always here.

“The door itself is worth more than everything we own.” Jess gawked at the large mahogany door of the famed Gilmore house. 

“Welcome to the realm of the one percent,” Ella replied, smirking as they stood hand-in-hand facing the entryway. Beyond it, she could hear the faint sound of classical music and polite chatter. “I don’t hate it, though. It’s got kind of a  _ Great Gatsby _ thing going on, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But I think it’s more like  _ Dracula _ .”

“Hm,” she nodded, lifting her eyes to see the pillars on either side of the door. “ _ Wuthering Heights _ ?”

“Oh yeah,” Jess agreed. “ _ That  _ sounds right.”

“Get ready, then, Heathcliff,” Ella quipped, ringing the doorbell.

Jess scoffed. “Ready as I  _ can _ be, Catherine.”

Not more than a moment later, the door swung aside to reveal a woman in a maid’s outfit in the sprawling foyer. Behind the maid, there were groups of well-dressed people, mostly older, milling about with martini glasses in their hands, sugar on the rims. Though she couldn’t quite be sure, Ella thought it was Mozart playing from somewhere farther inside, live on a piano. It sounded fine, but she had always preferred Beethoven. The lesser of two evils, she had taken to calling him. Before even stepping beyond the threshold, she could see at least two chandeliers gleaming in the yellowish lights. She tugged Jess along by the hand, stepping up and into the house. 

“Good evening,” the maid said. 

“Hi,” Ella said, smiling at the small woman with black hair and dazzling brown eyes. “This is Rory Gilmore’s graduation party, right?”

Jess chuckled behind her. They’d gotten a bit lost on the way up to Hartford. The plan had originally been to follow Luke’s truck, but he had decided against going at the last minute. He wasn’t sure if Lorelai would really want him there. Instead, they had followed the less than legible directions Luke scribbled on one of the diner napkins. Luke rarely remembered street names, using mostly landmarks. The drive would have been easier if it wasn’t already near dark by the time the party started. 

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid answered formally, holding a hand out to Ella. “May I take your bag?”

Furrowing her brows, Ella looked down at her large black purse, the only one she owned, and then back up at the woman. She hadn’t been expecting such a question, instead thinking she’d either carry it with her or stumble upon a coat rack somewhere. “Oh, sure. Thank you. That’d be great...sorry. I didn’t catch your name?”

The maid looked equally confused as she took Ella’s bag from her. “Helen.”

“Okay, Helen. I’m Ella,” she said, sticking out her hand for Helen to shake, tilting her head in Jess’s direction. “That’s Jess. We’re Rory’s friends.”

Jess nodded in greeting at Helen, biting back a laugh as the maid shook Ella’s hand with a disconcerted expression.

“Enjoy the party,” Helen muttered, then turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd behind her. 

“I don’t think you were supposed to introduce us to the maid,” Jess chuckled as Ella led him through the sea of people to the left, revealing a large sitting room with an open bar. 

“Who cares what we’re  _ supposed _ to do?” Ella shrugged, stopping in her tracks as she began to search the room for anyone she knew. “Rory used to tell me her mother fired a maid a week. Figured she might need at least one friendly face tonight.”

His smile turned warm and his face lost its amusement as he regarded her for a moment. Her hair was back in a low bun, shorter pieces framing her face. She wore a dress bought special from Goodwill for the occasion, a black bodice and a skirt of lavender tulle. On her feet, the same black leather ballet flats she had owned since high school. Somehow, they hadn’t begun to fall apart yet. Beauty in her usual, hasty variety. She didn’t look exactly comfortable, but she looked like herself, fitting in so well simply because she wasn’t putting anything on. He disentangled their fingers and brought his hand to her freckled cheek instead, catching her lips in a kiss. 

For a moment, Ella relished in the feeling of the butterflies in her stomach. But then, she remembered the buzz of the socialites around them and the mission at hand: to find Rory and congratulate her. She pulled away from him with a  _ smack! _ and blushed immediately. 

“Jesus, James Dean. Wait until we’ve got a smaller audience,” she snapped, though there was a smirk playing on her mouth. She was glad to only be wearing chapstick. Most of the makeup she was the dark smudge of smoke around her eyes.

Jess only shrugged, nonchalant and smug. “We’re the other half, Daria. They don’t expect too much from us.”

She rolled her eyes. Before she should retort, though, a woman with heavily styled brown hair and a glittery pantsuit approached them. Thankfully, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for Ella to recognize her as Rory’s grandmother, Emily Gilmore, who she’d met only once before. Back when Ella was still working at the diner, Rory had brought her grandmother for a tour of the town. Ella remembered how odd the chunky white sneakers looked on Emily’s feet, as she had also been wearing a stuffy, expensive skirt set and some Chanel No. 5. 

“Ella! How nice to see you!” Emily received them, her voice raspy and pleasant.

Regaining her composure, hoping the flustered roses on her cheeks had cooled, Ella plastered on her best smile. “Good to see you, Mrs. Gilmore. Thanks for inviting us. Your house is incredible.”

“Ah, thank you,” Emily said gratefully, then looked quizzically at Jess. “And I should hope this is a boyfriend, from that little display I just witnessed.”

Ella’s face fell at the tight, irritated tone in Emily’s voice. Her skin flushed once again in embarrassment. She cleared her throat and grabbed Jess’s hand once more. “Yes, this is Jess Mariano.”

“Hi,” Jess said shortly, extending his free hand to Emily.

“Hello, Jess. I’m Mrs. Gilmore, Rory’s grandmother,” Emily replied cordially, reciprocating, though the distaste was still very evident in her voice and her face. She turned back to Ella as she broke her handshake with Jess. “How are you? It’s been so long. Are you still doing those little doodles?”

Her smile came to look even more forced, but Ella maintained the facade. It was Rory’s party. The least she could do was avoid a scuff with the hostess. “Yes. I’ve only got a year of grad school left. Studio art.”

Widening her eyes and nodding along, Emily made a small noise of acknowledgement. “Wonderful! And what comes after grad school for an artist?”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella began to search her mind for a careful way to answer the question. The easy thing was to say she had no idea. But then, Ella had heard enough stories about Rory’s grandparents not to be entirely honest. “Well, I-”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Emily exclaimed suddenly, brown doe eyes fixed on something over Ella’s shoulder. “I told him a million times to wait to serve the cheese cubes!”

Ella furrowed her brow, glancing behind her. 

“I’ve  _ got _ to go take care of this,” Emily said gravely. “Enjoy yourselves, you two. Make sure to try a Rory.”

“Um, pardon-” Ella began, but Emily had already begun her purposeful march back to the head waiter, who was apparently serving the hors devours out of order.

“Try a Rory!” a voice chirped cheerfully in front of them, and Ella jumped a little, turning her head forward once more. 

Jess had a scowl on his face, so far unamused by the extravagant fanfare. 

A waiter stood with a tray in front of them, a wide grin on his face. He stared at them expectantly for a moment, beaming, before they took the hint and each grabbed a drink from the tray. As they gave begrudging grunts of thanks, the waiter was already off to assault another group of partygoers with his enthusiastic exclamations. The drinks were those Ella had seen in the hands of other guests in the foyer, crusted rim martini glasses filled with pink, perfumy liquid. 

“What the hell is this?” she thought aloud, inspecting the drink, swirling it around in the glass. She smelled it, and could only make out something fruity and the strong stench of alcohol.

Jess shrugged, staring down at his own glass inquisitively. “It’s a Rory.”

She scoffed. “Well, of course. I mean you haven’t  _ lived _ until you’ve had a drink named after you.”

Snorting a laugh, Jess nodded. “I knew they were rich. But I didn’t know they lived in an Orwellian nightmare.”

“Me neither,” Ella said.

“Shall we?” Jess asked, raising his glass. 

Heaving a large sigh, Ella clinked her cup against his. “We shall. Please don’t let Chris have any input in my eulogy.”

“No promises,” Jess quipped, before downing a big sip of his drink.

“Jackass.”

Taking a sip, Ella almost instantly regretted it. She never thought she would have the opportunity to taste the color pink, but she certainly wasn’t enjoying it now that it had come. As a child, her mother had sometimes stuck a bar of soap in her mouth when she let a swear word slip. Obviously, the technique hadn’t worked in the long run, but the taste was usually enough to elicit a weeks-long change in vocabulary. The drink instantly brought back the soapy memories. It was not quite  _ Irish Spring _ , and not quite the orange bars of  _ Dial _ her mother had eventually become partial to for punishments, but somewhere in-between. Her face twisted into a grimace and she swallowed with great labor.

Jess was already uttering a harsh cough as she finally managed to get the stuff down. “Are we sure they didn’t bring us all here to poison us?”

“Anything’s possible,” she replied, shaking her head at the taste. “Can we find a plant to dump these in?”

“I think it’d be wise,” Jess said, eyes immediately scanning the room.

He tossed a glance in her direction, then pointed subtly to a ficus in the corner by the sliding glass door. Meandering through the crowd of people, Ella did her best to look inconspicuous. She stood guard, blocking the view of Jess, as he drained his own drink into the plant and then took hers from where she held it out to him behind her back. After a few moments more of indecision, they placed their empty glasses on the mantelpiece and fled the scene of the crime into the dining room, where other groups were milling about. 

“We might’ve just murdered that plant, Stevens,” Jess said as they finally came to a stop, lingering in the doorway between the foyer and the dining room.

“Well, death is a part of life,” Ella said dryly, still frowning at the taste in her mouth. “But if it does die, I’ll probably be the prime suspect. Maybe second to Lorelai. Mrs. Gilmore didn’t like me when she met me the first time, and it doesn’t seem like much has changed.”

“Why would she invite you, then?”

“Because Lane’s on tour and I’m pretty sure I’m the only other Stars Hollow friend she knows about,” Ella explained. It wasn’t hard to gather why her presence had been requested, with a formal invitation in the mail weeks earlier. 

“Huh.”

“Can’t betray Emily Post, can she?” Ella said flippantly. 

Jess smirked. “No, I think that’d get her twenty to life.”

Ella laughed, just as she finally spotted Rory approaching them from the opposite side of the dining room, with Logan in tow and Lorelai following behind. Rory looked radiant, hair curled perfectly and blue dress free of a single wrinkle. It reminded Ella of a dress Rory had worn to a school dance with Dean years earlier, the one she and Lane had squealed so loudly and girlishly over when Rory told them. The dress had been made by Lorelai, though. Ella didn’t doubt the dress Rory now wore cost more than the mansion door. She felt her stomach flip over when she caught herself in her thoughts. Ella knew she didn’t need to resent anyone’s wealth. She knew it truly didn’t make anyone any happier. But sometimes, she stopped the train too late and she’d already turned a bit green with envy. 

“Guys! You made it! I’m so glad to see you!” Rory exclaimed happily. She hugged them both, then linked her arm with Logan’s.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t miss it,” Ella said. “We couldn’t find a scuba suit to buy you, though. Sorry.”

Smiling amiably, Rory gave a dismissive shake of her head, playing along. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll still be able to snag my Mrs. Robinson without one. Listen, Logan and I were on our way to find my grandpa, but I’ll try and catch up with you guys later. Is that okay?”

Ella nodded. “Of course. Go have fun, Thelma.”

The grin on Rory’s face grew, her teeth straight and white. “Thanks, Louise.”

Then, both of them were gone, Logan biding both Jess and Ella thin, compulsory goodbyes. Lorelai hung back a moment though, greeting the two of them. Her blue eyes were distracted and her voice was slightly frantic, but her usual warmth was ever-present. 

“My dad’s been hiding from the party all night,” Lorelai explained. “My mother’s appointed us to seek.”

“Ah. I’ve had to do that more than once,” Ella said, giving Jess a playful nudge.

He rolled his eyes and flushed at her teasing. “I’m not a big party guy. Sue me.”

“As if you have any fortune worth chasing,” Ella shot back, then turned her full attention to Lorelai. “So, how does it feel to be the mother of a soon-to-be Yale graduate?” 

“Honestly, sweetie?” Lorelai said, her eyes shining with pride. “Pretty damn good.”

“I’m glad,” Ella said.

“Hey, how did Adam’s go today?” Lorelai asked, taking another sip of her gin. “Did Father of the Year show up?”

Ella’s face fell and Jess cast her a glance. The two hours between the high school graduation and Rory’s party had been spent alternating between getting ready and hyperventilating. Maybe she hadn’t previously realized how unlikely she’d thought Jake’s showing up would be. His presence caught her off guard, trudging up old feelings which left the bitter taste of bourbon in her mouth. She didn’t know why she’d said what she had, when normally she could keep her mind and her mouth pretty well separated. Usually, her quips were calculated and deliberate. But Jake bringing up her mother right away after not speaking with Ella for so long? Saying she’d be disappointed in Ella’s choices? A burning rage Ella hadn’t known in years had flared up inside of her, and all her powers of restraint had short circuited. She’d said the first, most searing, most jarring, most hurtful thing she could think of. 

“That he did,” Ella said shortly, looking down at her flats and wishing she still had a drink in her hand. Well, any drink but the pink monstrosity they were serving on the silver platters. 

Lorelai scrunched up her nose knowingly. “Didn’t go so well, huh?”

“You remember that part in  _ The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly _ when Clint Eastwood blows up the bridge?” Ella asked.

“Yeah?” Lorelai replied. 

“Well, it was pretty much like that,” Ella said. “Except, neither of us were trying to build a bridge.”

Lorelai hummed in sympathy, then pulled Ella in for another short hug. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“It’s alright,” Ella shrugged. “There’s about a hundred miles of distance between us on a regular day, so at least I don’t need to worry about any repeat occurrences in the near future.”

“Lorelai! Hi!” A reedy voice piped up from behind them, and Lorelai turned to see a small blonde woman and an even smaller brunette man nearing. 

Lorelai’s eyes widened slightly. “Hi, Paris. Good to see you. Have you met Ella and Jess yet? They’re Rory’s friends from Stars Hollow.”

Paris. The name rang a bell in Ella’s head immediately. She finally got to put a face to the person Rory had complained and gushed about for years. The ultimate frenemy. In a way, Ella already admired Paris, though their paths had never managed to cross. Ella looked up at Jess, mouthing the name to him again. He raised his eyebrows, but then a thick shadow of recognition crossed his face, and a smirk tugged at his lips. 

“I’ve gotta go find my dad, but I’ll be sure to catch up with you later,” Lorelai said, taking her leave sheepishly but gratefully. 

“I’ll find you,” Paris said, nodding curtly at Lorelai as she walked away. Then, she turned back to Ella and Jess, immediately sizing them up. She stuck out her hand. “Paris Geller. I believe Rory’s mentioned you once or twice.”

Ella accepted the handshake first, smiling. “Ella Stevens. Pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Firm handshake,” Paris commented, with just a hint of admiration.

“Thank you for noticing.” Ella matched Paris’s strong gaze until their palms broke apart.

“Hi. I’m Jess,” Jess said as he himself shook Paris’s hand.

For a moment, Ella had to fight a smirk at Jess’s stand-offish shyness. Sometimes, he was so adorable she almost couldn’t handle it.

“And, this is Doyle,” Paris said, motioning to the man in the suit next to her. “My other half.”

After having finally finished exchanging their greetings, Paris glanced down at the photo on the t-shirt Jess wore. Ella saw immediately after he got dressed that he was wearing almost the exact the same outfit she’d found him in at Truncheon’s open house one year earlier. The blazer, the black and white t-shirt. Even the low-rise converse knock-offs. Only, now, he’d ditched the jeans for actual slacks, and a slightly better quality belt. She wondered at how much had changed in twelve months’ time.

“Interesting shirt. Joseph Szabo, huh?” Paris asked.

Jess hummed in confirmation.

“I always liked ‘Priscilla,’” Ella said, eyes flicking between Jess’s shirt and Paris. 

“Personally, I think it’s a little derivative,” Paris said, arching a brow. “You guys are into photography, then?”

“Sort of. I’m an artist. Jess is a writer,” Ella explained.

“Ah,” Paris said, giving Jess a pointed look. “You looked like an author. Let me guess...Kerouac fanatic?”

Ella couldn’t hold back her laughter. 

Jess didn’t let Paris’s accuracy shake his cool facade, though. “You could say that. He’s at the top of the list.”

“Along with?” Paris asked. 

“Bukowski, Hemingway, Salinger,” Jess replied easily.

Paris scoffed, shaking her head. “What a surprise. God forbid one of you beatnik guys reads Jane Austen.”

“Hey! I’ve read Jane Austen,” Jess retorted, more insistent. 

A wide smirk blossomed on Ella’s face as Paris and Jess continued squabbling over their preferences. Jess got even more heated, and Ella more amused, as Paris insulted the beats and eventually brought up poetry. It was already the highlight of the party. 

“It seems she’s met a worthy opponent,” Doyle told Ella, watching his girlfriend argue.

Ella nodded proudly, humming in agreement.

. . .

Cicadas were buzzing loudly in Ella’s ears as she landed hard on the wood floor of Luke’s apartment. She let out a  _ whoosh _ of air when her back hit the floor, groaning and muttering confused curses under her breath as she rubbed at her eyes. Getting her bearings, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. She could barely make out Luke’s disheveled silhouette, snoring loudly on the old brown couch, in the darkness of the room. He’d already been asleep by the time they got back from Rory’s party, with a note on the kitchen table insisting they take the double bed. Taking in a deep, frustrated breath, Ella got up from the floor and was surprised when she saw the mattress entirely empty, save for the rumpled sheets and comforter. She had been in the midst of a dreamless sleep when she’d rolled off the bed. It was the first time she had done something of the like since she was a little kid. But it made more sense without Jess’s frame there to block her from turning over too far. He may have been the lighter sleeper, but he didn’t move around nearly as much as Ella did when he finally shut his eyes for the night. 

With furrowed brows, Ella padded silently over to see the tiny bathroom empty and dark, the door ajar. She didn’t see him at the kitchen table either, and his shoes were sitting by the door where he’d left them earlier. His watch and his wallet sat on the nightstand. Though she did her best to swallow it down, an awful, familiar panic began to rise in her throat. Her rational mind knew there was no way Jess had been snatched out of bed in the middle of the night without she or Luke noticing, and there was no way he could’ve been kidnapped in a place like Stars Hollow, no matter how zany the residents sometimes were. But, still, anything was possible.

Her thoughts wandered dangerously as she descended the rickety stairs into the diner. It, too, was empty. She even checked the kitchen, the stockroom, and the bathroom. Jess was nowhere to be found. Could he have left? In the middle of the night? It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, especially if one took his past into consideration. But as she made her way through the unlocked front door, she found her station wagon parked outside, the chipped, dark blue paint visible in the soft light of the half moon. The bus station? But why would he have gone without his shoes, without his wallet, without his watch? Without her. 

She swallowed harshly, grimacing at the fear swirling in her stomach. Eyes roaming over the town, she racked her brain. But then she cast her gaze over to a beaten dirt path, to the right of the high school, and she felt just a touch less frantic. She crossed her arms over her t-shirt and hurried down toward it. The night air was welcome against her legs, mostly bare in her soft pajama shorts. As she rounded the corner below one of the town’s few streetlights, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding in. His form was hunched over, sitting on the bridge above the lake. Always the bridge, she thought to herself, and would have smirked if she wasn’t feeling so shaken. She neared him, her steps sounding dully on the bridge. She could see Jess’s bare feet, below the cuffs of his plaid pajama bottoms, dangling just over the water. The lake rippled, the bluish-white moonlight reflecting against the water and shining on Jess’s face. His jaw was set tensely. She could see the silver chain around his neck glinting where it peeked out from beneath his worn t-shirt.

Shaking her head, Ella took the seat beside him without waiting for an acknowledgement. She knew he would’ve heard her coming. He didn’t startle when her arm brushed against his. She looked down, her toes, painted purple, swinging underneath her as she hung her legs off the bridge. 

“You’ll get an infection walking around without shoes,” she said, finally breaking the silence. 

Jess uttered a low, half-hearted chuckle. “Not in Stars Hollow.”

She let a nostalgic smirk cross her face for only a moment before she turned her head to him. “Jesus, Jess. Leave a note next time.”

He ran a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d wake you.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “I fell off the bed.”

“She’s beauty and she’s grace,” Jess teased, though his heart wasn’t hardly in it.

“It’s true.”   
  


“Are you okay?” he asked, voice laced with concern as he finally met her eyes. He looked tired, eyes red-rimmed. She wondered vaguely if he’d been crying.

Ella nodded. “Yeah, cutie. Just a bruise or two. I’m fine. Are you?”

Jess shrugged and looked away from her again. He couldn’t make out the trees across the water in the darkness. It must have been the middle of the night, two or three in the morning; the darkest hours before the dawn would break. “Couldn’t sleep.”

She nodded again, and was almost certain he’d had a nightmare. But it must have been exceptionally bad to have him retreating to the lake in the middle of the night, so she didn’t ask. She only pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and watched the water again, waiting.

There was a long pause before he spoke. “Elle?”

“Hm?”

“How do you…” he stopped to sigh, running a hand over his mouth once more.

“How do I what?” she asked gently.

“How do you do it?” he blurted out, unable to find a way to phrase the question better. His fatigue seemed to be clouding his verbal skills, which were never the best to begin with. “I mean...you just seem so okay with everything. You have it all together. You don’t believe in fate, or God, or anything. But you just...keep going.”

“I don’t have it all together, Jess,” she said.

“No, but you do,” Jess continued quietly, staring down at the small movements of the water. “I mean, maybe you don’t have your  _ entire life _ figured out. But you know who you are. You don’t care what anyone thinks. You don’t believe in anything but you. And nothing shakes you, y’know?”

Tilting her head at him, she searched for an answer. He’d caught her off guard again. Smacking her lips together, she furrowed her brows and began undoing the french braid in her hair as she spoke. Partially because it felt too tight all of a sudden, and partially to have an outlet for the nervous energy in her hands. 

“Things shake me. But...I don't know, Mariano. I think at some point I just sort of...accepted them. I can’t change what happened to my mom, I can’t change my dad, I can’t change much. I can only solve the problems I can solve, and there’s not many.”

He nodded, biting down hard on his bottom lip. “I guess you’re right.”

Heaving a sigh, she finished shaking the braid out of her long hair, and laid back against the bridge. Above, the sky was so blue it was almost pitch black. Stars shone brightly against the backdrop, numerous without the light pollution of a city like Philadelphia. She felt a sudden pang of homesickness, unlike anything she had experienced since moving away. There weren’t many things she missed about the small town in which she grew up, but the view of the night sky was one of them. 

“But doesn’t it ever...bother you?” Jess asked, still unsure himself of exactly what he was trying to say. 

“Sort of. Sometimes,” Ella said, gaze focusing on the little dipper. She felt her muscles relax, and the ache in her back quieted down a bit. She knew she would be a bit sore in the morning. “When I was a kid, I used to go out with my big brother in the summer and catch fireflies. And then we would try to find constellations, though I’m pretty sure all we knew was Orion’s belt.”

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah,” she echoed wistfully. “I loved the stars...In third grade, I knew this girl whose uncle worked at NASA. And for her birthday, her parents bought her a star and named it after her. I had no idea you could do that. And I begged my parents for like...fucking  _ months  _ to get a star. I didn’t even want to name it after me. I wanted to make up a name for it, but still...have it be mine. But...we barely had money for groceries...let alone a star. And I was pissed about it for a while. But, then, eventually, we learned about how the light of the stars we see is hundreds of years old.”

“Pretty good for a public school,” Jess interjected.

Ella giggled. “I agree. But, after I learned it, I didn’t give a fuck about naming a star anymore. Because any star I would’ve named was dead already.”

“So, you were a nihilist even as an eight-year-old?” he asked, glancing back at her. Her blonde hair was swept over her shoulder, eyes glittering greenish, skin dewy and pale.

“Pretty much,” she said. “But it’s like that, I guess. I can’t bring a star back to life, so why worry about it dying? Even after my mom...I tried for a while to get over it. I tried to...solve it. I thought if I just got over it, it would be done, and I wouldn’t have to think about it ever again. My dad wasn’t helping, and Adam was a wreck. He stayed with Julie for a few weeks after she died, actually. He said he couldn’t stand being around my dad and I.”

“Because you were fighting?” Jess asked.

Ella shook her head softly, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “No, actually. We were drinking.”

“ _ What _ ?” Jess turned his body to face her, sitting cross-legged at her side. 

“Yeah, we were sitting around the kitchen table drinking. Pretty much all the time. Noah was off with his friends, doing whatever he was doing to get by. So, I didn’t want to leave my dad alone. We would just drink all night, whenever I wasn’t at school...Sometimes, I would cry afterwards, when I was alone or when the hangover hit. But never in front of him. And I thought it would get better, but it wasn’t helping,” she explained, stopping briefly to take a deep breath of the fresh summer air. “Eventually, I...I would sleep through entire weekends, night and day, just to pass the time. I didn’t eat much, but I wasn’t really hungry. I just slept and slept. I remember...being so tired. I didn’t see anyone...not even Lane and Rory those first few weeks. I started smoking, too. I kept up with schoolwork and everything...I don’t really know why. Maybe it was just a force of habit...the one constant thing. Nothing seemed important, though. Without her there, I mean.”

Eyebrows raised, Jess listened. He had never heard her talk so much about the immediate period of time after her mother’s death. Not even he knew the details. And it shocked him the way she spoke. She wasn’t crying. She was barely pausing or stuttering at all. She told him matter-of-factly, detached. 

She shrugged. “But that only lasted a few weeks. I managed to go to school, but my dad pretty much just stopped going to work. Even after the leave they gave him. He lost his job, but he wouldn’t even try looking for another one. He was just too...he couldn’t do anything. So, I stopped drinking. I didn’t pick up any alcohol again until that night I stole his tequila. And I got a job at Luke’s, to get us some extra money. And Luke threw in leftovers whenever he could. I didn’t think about her really...not for a long time. There were other problems to worry about, I guess. So, I just...got up and kept going. That’s the way it’s always been for me, I guess. She was dead, and we needed money.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Things shake me, Jess. But I’ve always been good at just sort of...getting on with it...not thinking about it,” she said, voice slightly strained but clear. “I still don’t think about her most of the time. Not in a real way. Maybe that’s why I got so fucking angry when my dad brought her up today. He’s just so...I don’t know. Maybe he wishes I kept drinking with him...that I never got a job or got up from the kitchen table. Maybe he would have an easier time looking at himself now.”

Jess hummed in acknowledgment, giving a small nod of his head. He cast a careful glance her way. “Are you mad at your mom?”

She averted her eyes from him and found Polaris, the brightest amongst all the other dots of light. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay to be mad at her,” he said.

“I know,” she replied softly. “I’ve had enough school counselors tell me that to know it. But...honestly...sometimes I feel like...if I think about it too hard...I’ll go back. I’ll feel like I did then. I’ll  _ be _ like I was then. And I don’t see the point of going back there.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, then finally came to lay beside her. He shivered slightly as his back touched the bridge, though the air was warm.

Then, after a moment, she asked: “Are you worried about Doula?”

He didn’t answer. He only took one of her hands in his own, as they both gazed up at the sea of stars above, and squeezed it once. Hard, though nowhere near hard enough to hurt. She nodded knowingly, and didn’t ask anything more. A breeze blew past them, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. She felt her eyes threatening to flutter shut once or twice, but she willed them to stay open. Not only for the view they were enjoying. 

“That was some party, huh?” Jess asked, breaking the silence. His tone was lighter than it had been since they had arrived in Stars Hollow. They’d talked about the party a little bit in the car on the way home, Jess driving. But Ella had already begun to doze during the ride, exhausted from the long day.

She snorted a laugh. “Fuck, I don’t know which I liked less: Emily Gilmore seeing us make out or drinking that battery acid.”

“I don’t know. I think her calling your art ‘doodles’ is also in the running,” Jess added.

She smirked. “No, she can call them whatever she wants. I’d never trust the taste of someone who thinks it’s appropriate to put a chandelier in a bathroom, anyway.”

Jess laughed heartily. “Agreed.”

“I’m glad you made a new friend, though,” Ella said.

Furrowing his brows, Jess tore his eyes away from the stars to look at her. “Who?”

“ _ Paris _ ,” Ella replied, as though it were obvious.   
  


“Ah,” Jess said, nodding. “I don’t know if I’d call her a friend, but it was fun to listen to her accuse me of sacrilege when I said Bukowski was better than Elizabeth Bishop.”

“Well, she was right,” Ella said, bumping his shoulder playfully with her own. “She was cute, too.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“I think if you and Doyle didn’t exist, she and I would make for the most powerful couple on the East Coast,” she teased.

Jess snorted a laugh. “You could handle that level of intensity?”

“ _ Please _ ,” she mocked, rolling her eyes. “I live with you.”

Jess gasped, feigning astonishment as he brought his free hand over his heart. “Cruel woman.”

“I think you’ll survive,” she replied, smiling.

“I’m not so sure,” Jess said, continuing his bit.

Rolling her eyes, Ella disentangled their fingers, got up on an elbow, and looked down at him. She could see the shadow of stubble on his cheeks and the faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he smirked at her. Leaning in, she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips, lingering as he ran a hand through her hair. When she came up for air, she noticed again how sleepy he looked.

“You feel any better?” she asked.

He licked his lips. “I’m getting there.”

Only after one more long kiss did Jess agree to return to bed, walking hand-in-hand with her in the dead of night, back to Luke’s.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	37. A Dash of Morticia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After an argument with Jess, Ella storms out of the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The descriptions of panic attacks in this chapter and in this fic are based on research and my own experiences. Everyone is different. If you need to talk, I am always here. I just felt Gilmore Girls always kind of ignored Jess's trauma, and the after-effects it would have had on him.

A few stray streaks of blue paint had dried on her forearms, but Ella was eager to get home and had done a haphazard job of washing up after class. She had sent the kids home with their final projects, the extra time at the end of the day used for free painting time. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to the kids she had spent all three months with, exploring all different mediums through the summer art program at the college. But she was glad to be only two weeks away from the beginning of her final year of grad school. The end of her time as a student was so close, she could almost taste it. Still, though, she found it hard to believe at some point her life wouldn’t be dictated by study guides and test scores.

Her keys stuck slightly in the lock, as they always did, as she entered the apartment. The clock read half past six already; Ella had been too caught up clearing out her room at the college to leave anywhere near on time. The walk home had been calming, the sky just beginning to turn a pinkish orange hue. Her heart was light as she set her keys on the counter and bag on the coat rack. Jess sat on the couch with the third draft of his book in his hands, a crease of concentration between his brows and a red pen in his hand. He hadn’t looked up at the sound of her coming in, but she wasn’t surprised. Lately, he had been totally absorbed in his work.

Over the course of the summer, she had watched his nerves growing over the new project. Though she did her best, she found it hard to understand why. He had already sent preliminary published copies out to certain vendors, and most responses were enthusiastic. The more she found him startling awake in the middle of the night, or snapping at herself or their friends over the smallest things, or growing quiet at things he would normally have spoken to her for hours about, the more she suspected his behavior had little to do with the book. Even when he wasn’t working on his writing, he was stand-offish. Distant. It was though he was somewhere else. A place which made his hands shake and his eyes dart around anxiously. 

She chewed at her thumb nail as she approached the couch. The longer she felt out of the sync with him, the more frustrated she grew. If it had been anybody else, she would have told him off months ago. But she knew she needed to be patient. Each time she felt the old, familiar anger rise in her throat, she reminded herself of where they had come from and the way he always listened. But she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit her faith in his ability to recognize what had been going on with him for more than just the past few months was wavering. 

Letting out a small sigh, she plopped down on the couch next to him and ran her nail-bitten fingers through the ends of his hair, her hand on the back of his neck. 

“Hey, cutie,” she said quietly.

Still, he didn’t look over at her. But he let a small smile cross his lips. “Hey.”

“We got Thai last week, so do you wanna get Chinese or Mexican tonight?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not that hungry.”

Ella furrowed her brows and scoffed in disbelief. “But we always get takeout on Friday. It’s universal law!”

“Well, you pick,” he said, underlining something on the page. 

Biting the inside of her cheek, she took a long pause and a deep breath. “Jess, just take a break. You’ll make yourself nauseous reading it over and over again.”

“You’re one to talk,” he shot back distractedly.

“At least look at me,” she continued, insistent. 

He heaved a sigh and finally tore his eyes away from the words. He smacked his lips together and raised his eyebrows expectantly as he faced her. “I’m looking at you.”

Ella took a look back at him. She just couldn’t help it as she rolled her eyes and stood up from the couch. “God, you’re such a dick sometimes.”

“Great, so I guess we’re fighting now?” he asked, tossing the manuscript on the coffee table in annoyance. 

Ella turned back to him before she could make it to the bedroom, crossing her arms over her floral t-shirt. She huffed out a breath. “Yeah, I guess if that’s what it takes to get you to talk to me.”

“Okay, Norma Desmond, since apparently we’re acting like we don’t talk to each other every day, what do you wanna talk about?” He shot her a thin, sardonic smile. “You wanna talk about how you’re allowed to get invested in your work but for some reason I’m not?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. For a moment, she thought about apologizing and letting it go. But, then, she realized she didn’t know what she would be apologizing for. The gnawing hunger in her stomach after a long day of work did nothing to help her mood, either. She’d come home excited, ready for some dinner and to celebrate her last day of summer camp. And Jess had played the part of the storm cloud over her head once again. She’d had enough of it. 

“Y’know what?” she wagered.

“ _ What _ ?”

“You don’t get to do this,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t get to act like you wouldn’t feel the same way if I was doing this. If I was barely saying a word and being a jackass to everyone and having nightmares almost every single night!”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth and rose from his seat. “Oh, I don’t get to, huh?”

“No, you don’t!” she said, voice raised. “This thing of ours is a two-way street! You can’t shut me out like this!”

He sighed. “Eleanor-”

“Stop it, Jess. Just stop bullshitting me. Just tell me what’s really going on.”

“Look, I’m sorry if this book thing is bothering you, but I-”

“It’s not about the book!” she yelled, cutting him off and throwing her hands at her side in anger. “I know publishing a book takes time, okay? Hell, I’ve edited the book twice already! But something is up with you! Something’s been up with you for months! Just spit it the fuck out!”

“Nothing is up with me!” he countered, matching her volume. His brow was heavy with agitation. “I’m just trying to get the damn book published! What can’t you understand about that?!”

She shook her head again. “I am so sick of you making excuses, Jess! Just tell me! If you tell me, I can help you, alright?”

Something passed across his face and Ella could practically see the walls go up around his heart. “You are  _ so much _ like Luke sometimes.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, exhausted and dejected.   
  


“Maybe I don’t have a problem, maybe you have a problem,” he said, crossing his own arms defiantly. “Maybe all of this is just so you can ignore how upset you are about what happened at Adam’s graduation.”

Ella almost took a physical step back, surprised at the accusation. “I’m not upset about that.”

“ _ Really _ ?” he scoffed. “Have you called your brother since then? Or Lane? Or anyone in Stars Hollow? Or have you just been too busy here trying to create problems to solve instead of the ones you already have? I mean, just look at your hands! You’ve barely got any nails left!”

“Stop trying to change the fucking subject!” she spat out, a bite growing in her voice. “What the hell are you so afraid of? Why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong so we can figure it out?”

“I’m not a project!” Jess shouted. “You can’t fix me, Eleanor!”

“I’m not trying to  _ fix _ you, Jess! I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong...I’m trying to get you to talk to me before I wake up one morning and you’re gone!”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. They stood across from each other, the coffee table in between. Outside, the light continued to wane. Jess’s face flushed in embarrassment and anger.

“That was five years ago! I was a kid! My dad showed up after-”

“I know!” she shrieked. “I know! Believe me, I know!  _ You _ were upset, so that made it okay for you to leave me without saying a fucking word, I know!”

“That’s not what I said!” Jess matched her volume, breathing hard.

“You didn’t have to!” she shot back. “And maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about it if you weren’t pulling your Holden Caulfield bullshit again, but you are! This is  _ just _ like it was then! But, guess what? I’ve been trying so hard, but I can’t deal with it anymore! I’m not doing it again!”

His eyes darkened and a frown deepened on his face as she stormed towards the door. “Where are you going?!”

“I don’t know! Maybe to California!” she growled, tugging on her converse and throwing her bag over her shoulder again. “When you’re ready to grow the fuck up and be honest with me, then call me! If not, then just leave me the fuck alone! You’ve been getting pretty good at that recently!”

The door shut with a hard  _ slam! _ behind her before Jess had a chance to respond. As soon as she was out of sight, his chest became tight. Out of breath, he felt his heart beating hard against his ribs. He almost ran after her, but he chose to relish in his anger at her instead. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he struggled to decide what to do with himself. After a moment, he looked down off the balcony and saw her car was gone. Satisfied at the low chance of running into her on the way out, he grabbed his keys and stomped out of the apartment, a five-dollar bill burning a hole in his pocket. A pack of cigarettes from the corner store was the only concrete thing on his mind.

. . .

Thumbing through Mabel’s copy of  _ A Streetcar Named Desire _ , Ella tried to quiet the restless buzzing of her nerves. Almost two whole days without a call. Not that she’d expected him to come grovelling to her, begging for forgiveness. But she hadn’t expected to stay at Mabel’s the entire weekend. The air was balmy and the sky was full of thunderheads, but no raindrops had yet fallen. There was the constant threat of a summer thunderstorm, but it hadn’t yet come. She was sprawled across the light pink couch, doing her best to concentrate on the words in front of her. 

Outside the window, she caught a flash of lightning out of the corner of her eye. A rumble rolled through the air, vibrating the ground. Ella sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose for a moment and staring up over at the vintage French ad hung up behind the couch. The apartment was beautiful; decked out in feminie floral patterns and extravagant accents. Mabel had welcomed Ella with open arms, even after Ella insisted she would just find a motel or something. Or perhaps go back to her and Jess’s apartment. But the idea of stepping foot through the door without Jess calling her made her blood boil. She could no longer feign ignorance, especially when she knew something was wrong. Tough love. That’s what she told herself. He just needed a dose of it, along with a bit of his own medicine. 

His words echoed in her head. It was true, she hadn’t called anyone in Stars Hollow since the graduation. She didn’t care to. The thought of ever visiting the town again made her stomach do a flip, as did the thought of seeing her father once more. She had hardly had time to decipher what her actual feelings were, between the summer camp job and her worry over Jess. She only knew they were unpleasant, and she didn’t much care to dwell on them. Was it worth it to think about it more? Was she just projecting? Certainly she wasn’t. Something  _ was _ up with Jess. It had been for a while and there was no denying it. But she couldn’t shake the pit of guilt in her stomach. Part of her knew he was right; at least somewhat. It would all have been better if she had been able to talk it out with Jess, if they were able to press pause on the fight somehow and just be best friends. But they couldn’t. It was the hardest part of being away from him, and it made her feel even more bitter. 

Everything would be so much easier if he didn’t loom so large in her heart. She would care less about her constant, sinking worry about him leaving. About him realizing he wasn’t happy and taking off for somewhere new without a word. Or any other consequence of whatever his recent problem had been. His inability to open up to her as he once had. An amorphous, nondescript fear which was recently always whispering in the back of her mind. Having the time to ruminate on her thoughts for such long periods of alone time, with Mabel off at work, seemed to only be making her feel more conflicted. And Ella was aware actors sometimes had erratic hours, but Mabel had been at Sunday night rehearsal for five hours. 

Her sketchbook had not seen such angry, horrifying drawings in a significant number of months. At times, the thought that this was the fight which would break them up crept into her mind. Surely he would be able to find someone less quarrelsome, who would be more patient for him. She wasn’t it.

The sound of her cell phone broke through her train of furious and fearful thoughts. She jumped slightly, startled at the noise. She put the book aside without saving the page; it was no use trying to read. Her heart jumped into her throat for a moment, wondering if Jess had somehow managed to call her just as she was thinking about him. But when she made it to the kitchen table and looked at the screen, she deflated. It was Matthew.

“Hello?” she answered, hand on one hip of her faded blue dress, borrowed from Mabel. Mabel was taller than her, and the dress hung loosely on her frame. The only clothes she’d brought with her were the ones on her back as she left the apartment, now stale and stuffed into her purse. 

“Ella? Are you still at Mabel’s?” Matthew asked, voice with a slight, frantic edge. 

She furrowed her brows. “Yeah? Why?”

“Look, Jess said you guys are fighting. So, I don’t know and I...can you get over here?” Matthew said, struggling to get the words out.

Ella felt her nerves beginning to course through her veins. “What’s wrong?”

He sighed through the receiver. “We were at Truncheon having a few drinks. Everything was normal. But then Jess started getting really upset and now he’s saying he can’t breathe and he’s shaking like crazy. But he won’t let us take him to the ER or anything, and-”

“Okay, just hang on. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Try to get him to drink some water and tell him I’m coming,” Ella instructed him, phone between her ear and her shoulder as she slipped her shoes on and grabbed her bag. 

“Is he okay? He said he was fine, but-” 

“Yes, Matthew. He’s fine. Just don’t panic and keep him calm until I get there,” she continued hastily, locking Mabel’s door and shutting it behind her. She’d have to shoot Mabel a text as soon as she got off the phone. She was just starting to pick up on the slight slur in Matthew’s words. He could handle his alcohol much better than Chris or Jess could, but she still felt herself doubting whether Matthew was capable of helping Jess through a panic attack at all if both of them were plastered. 

“I’ll try,” Matthew said, noncommittal, before bidding her goodbye and hanging up.

Her face was set in determination as she rushed down the stairs of the apartment building, texting as she went. As she hurried out the front door and tried not to let her car keys slip through her fingers, she felt the first drops of rain finally falling.

. . .

The drizzle had turned to a downpour by the time Ella made it to Truncheon, nearly tripping on the sidewalk in her worn converse as she ran from her car to the front door. She was met with the aged, familiar smell of the main room as she entered, immediately heading for the stairs. Her steps were heavy and she was damp and out of breath when she made it to the door of the apartment. She didn’t bother knocking. Instantly, she saw both Chris and Matthew huddled together across the living room, casting nervous glances at Jess, who sat on the couch with his hand on his chest. Several empty green beer bottles sat on the coffee table, glowing lowly in the yellowish light of the lamps. A full glass of water, untouched, also sat on the table directly in front of Jess. Ella shook her head softly and clicked her tongue in concern, throwing her bag down by the door and going to Jess. 

His eyes were glassy, and she saw a couple tear tracks shining on his stubbly cheeks. The words tumbled from his mouth in short, panting bursts. “Elle...you...we’re fighting...don’t-”

“Hey, Mariano, don’t worry about it, okay?” she said, offering him a small smile. She sat down on the couch next to him, so close their knees were almost brushing each other. She kept her tone and face even as she looked over her shoulder at Chris and Matthew. “How long has he been like this?”

Chris blinked at her hard a couple of times before processing her question. He squinted down at his watch. “About twenty minutes. Maybe more.”

Ella nodded, facing Jess again. She could smell the scent of beer wafting off of him. It was the drunkest she had seen him in a long time. “Okay, that means the worst is probably over. And you’ll be fine in just a few minutes.”

He shook his head, hands trembling violently. Chills rolled through his body, making him shake more. The palms of his hands were slick with sweat. His chest was tight and painful, and there was a wild fear in the back of his mind that he was having a heart attack. He had never had a panic attack which felt so intense before. Intoxication certainly wasn’t helping. When it first started, he had truly wondered if he was about to die. 

“I…” he began, swallowing harshly, “I told them...not to call you...I-I don’t…”

“Cutie, don’t worry, okay?” she repeated, soothing and slow. “Can I touch you?”

“Y-yeah,” he replied after a moment, shaking so bad his teeth were nearly chattering. 

Her kind smile grew a little as she cupped his face with her hands, wiping his tears with the pads of her thumbs. “Hey, just listen to me. Everything is fine. You are  _ wasted _ . And you’re having a panic attack. But everything’s okay.  _ You _ are okay. All you have to do is breathe, Jess.”

“I can’t-”

Before he could continue, she shifted her hands from his face to his wrists. Gently, she brought his hands to her chest and began breathing, long and slow, just as she had at the courthouse months earlier. He began to mimic the rise and fall of her chest as soon as he recognized her movements. 

“Breathe with me, honey,” she said. Then, she began counting in fives as she inhaled and exhaled. She could feel Jess’s tremors with his hands in her grasp. 

About five minutes of breathing, and the fire in his lungs finally began to burn out. He was still having trouble catching himself and his breath, but the tears had stopped. He did his best to choke out even words. 

“I’m fine, Elle,” he said. 

“You sure?” she asked, releasing his wrists. 

His gaze was wavering, but he nodded and sniffled, running a hand over his mouth. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Good. You did so good, James Dean,” she murmured, leaning in with her hands on either side of his face again, pressing a long kiss to his forehead. She smoothed circles over his back as he turned forwards again, finally taking a few sips of water. From their spot across the room, Matthew and Chris still looked unsure, nervous. Ella shot them another smile. “Everything’s fine, guys. Thank you for calling me.”

“And here’s hoping you’re both too drunk to remember this tomorrow,” Jess muttered, downing the rest of his water and staring down at the carpet with a flush of embarrassment reddening his cheeks. 

Matthew only shrugged sheepishly.

“Oh, I definitely am,” Chris said, nodding. His eyes were bloodshot against his pale skin, and he had a goofy grin on his lips.

Ella rolled her eyes. “Shocker.”

Breathing a sigh, Jess rubbed drunkenly at his eyes with the heels of his hands. 

After another moment of slightly awkward silence, she rose from her seat and held a hand out to Jess. “Let’s go home.”

Jess bit at his bottom lip, his mind swimming. “Really?”

“Really.”

. . .

In the morning, rain was still pattering steadily on the roof of the apartment building. Drops raced down the window in the bedroom, glistening with muddled gray light from the cloudy sky. The constant shower warmed Ella’s ears, mixing with the whisper of her name, as she crawled out of her dreamy sleep. For a moment, her heart sank into her stomach. She wondered briefly if Jess was waking her up because of another nightmare, another panic attack. But her fear dissipated as she cracked her eyes open, blinking a few times, and saw Jess sitting upright on the side of the bed, facing her. 

He didn’t look particularly rested, but his brown eyes were clear with sobriety, if red. She could see the slightly greenish tint of his skin. The severity of his hangover didn’t surprise her. After practically dragging him up the stairs, he’d collapsed on the bed before she could shove any pills down his throat. The best she could do was prop him on his side, pillows in a protective wall behind his back as he snored. The recovery position. She remembered it from the times he’d put her to bed.

“Hey,” he said quietly as she finally awoke. 

She cleared her throat, sitting up against the headboard. “Hi.”

Licking his lips, Jess brought one nervous hand out from behind his back. In it, he held a bouquet of dark purple tulips. Slowly, she took them, raising a doubtful eyebrow. It was still pretty early, and she wondered if the sun had even been up whenever he’d gone out to buy them for her.

“There’s thirteen,” Jess said as she inspected the flowers. “For good luck.”

She laughed half-heartedly. “Thank you,” she said, taking one last look at them before placing them on the nightstand beside her. “Pretty Nora Ephron. Even for you.”

“Look,” Jess began, glancing away from her with shame. Her voice didn’t have any anger, but also held no amusement. She sounded tired in a way that struck him and made even more guilt weigh on his shoulders. “I’m really sorry. About all of it. I know I’ve been kind of a wackjob. I’ve been freaking out and having those nightmares and-”

“That’s not anything you need to be sorry for,” Ella interjected, tone firm but not unpleasant. Her face was stoic as she waited for him to continue, raking her fingers through her hair. 

He swallowed thickly, then went on. “And I’ve been shutting you out and...I’m sorry I didn’t call. I started to about a million times, but I just...I didn’t want you...to be disappointed in me. Though I know you already are. I wasn’t ready to...have to hear it.”

She felt slightly taken aback. Such naked, plain speech seemed like a rarity for Jess. Usually, his inner world was cloaked in metaphor and wit as a makeshift mask. But, in the gloomy light of the morning, she was seeing him just as he was. And, this time, he was actively deciding to show her. 

“Jess, I’m not…” she paused for a moment to take a deep breath and collect her words, “I’m not disappointed in you. Not even a little bit. I’m just...I’m  _ so _ worried about you. And it’s fucking...it’s just so fucking difficult to have to sit back and watch you...put yourself through something you don’t have to be going through alone.”

“I know,” he said solemnly, nodding.

“And I know I push you. I mean, I’ve pretty much always pushed everyone. I’m sorry I’m not patient enough with you sometimes,” she said, biting at the inside of her cheek. “But, seriously, Mariano, I feel like I kept quiet as long as I could on this one.”

Jess let a small, fond smirk pass over his lips. “I know, Stevens. It’s not your fault. I didn’t mean to...sometimes it’s just hard for me to actually listen when you’re telling me something I don’t wanna hear.”

She matched his smile. “Well, that’s because you’re a jackass.”

He shrugged. “I’ve made my peace with it.”

Ella chuckled in response, smoothing her hands over the gray quilt which still covered her lower half. “As valiant of an effort as the flowers and the apology were, Jess, I’m still more interested in what’s wrong. Whatever it is...it’s okay. Just...please tell me.”

Nodding again, Jess ran a hand over his mouth. He brought his legs up from the side of the bed and sat cross-legged in front of her, their knees only inches apart. “Ever since Doula was born...I just can’t stop thinking about my mom and...everything that happened in New York. I mean, when Liz was pregnant it wasn’t great. But since we met Doula? Since I actually got to see her...it’s just been so much worse. When I think about her having to...fight with a stepdad, or get left with some stranger across the hall, or wander the library alone all day while Liz goes off to work or God knows where else…”

Ella placed a hand on the knee of his jeans as he paused. He bit down hard on his lip again. He didn’t feel as though he deserved that kind of affection from her after what had happened over the past few days. But he swallowed down the nerves which rose in his throat and continued. 

“I just keep remembering and thinking about it and...I can’t get it to stop sometimes. And now I’m even remembering in my sleep...I’m remembering so clearly. It’s like...there’s never gonna be an end. I’m never gonna actually get away from it all,” he explained sheepishly, fighting the lump in his throat and the way the tips of his ears burned.

“Hey, James Dean,” she said, and he finally looked up to meet her eyes again. “You  _ did _ get away from it. You did. I know it doesn’t feel like that sometimes, but you did. No matter how bad you’re feeling, you’re safe now. We’re both safe now.”

He scoffed out a doubtful, tearful laugh, but managed to keep himself together. Sometimes, the simplest reminders hit him the hardest, shocked him the most.

“And we can figure this out, okay?” Ella continued earnestly. “I know you still don’t have insurance, but this is a big city. There’s bound to be some kind of free service somewhere. And even if we can’t find anything right away, I’m always here. You can talk to me. Whatever it is. Whenever it is. I’m not gonna be as good as an actual counselor, but I’ll do my best until we can find you one. I’ll do some research.”

“Okay.”

“Seriously, Jess,” she said sternly. “I  _ need _ you to hear me on this. I  _ want _ you to talk to me. Nothing you could say would disappoint me, or anything like that. I mean, I know you got attacked by a swan. What could be more embarrassing than that?”

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head a little, though he couldn’t hide his amusement. “My God, every chance you can get...”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “But it’s just too easy sometimes.”

“Says the girl who once took a bite out of a  _ decorative  _ apple.”

“Says the boy who took a whole month to figure out how to pull a coin out of my ear,” she retorted. 

Then, with a moment of giggles exchanged between them, Jess’s expression shifted back to one of sincerity. “I’m sorry, Elle.”

“It’s okay,” she replied easily. “I’m sorry, too. I know it’s not like it was in high school. I know you’re not gonna leave. I trust you. Sometimes...I just get so caught up and I don’t...sometimes I forget who we are now and I go back to being the little girl whose mom died overnight and whose dad never calls.”

Jess tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear with an affectionate gaze. “But, hey, she turned out to be the next Georgia O’Keefe. With a dash of Morticia Addams.”

Ella shrugged. “Her boyfriend exaggerates, but she’s trying.”

“Thank you,” he said after a comfortable beat of silence. “For last night and...pretty much everything else since the day we met.”

She snorted a laugh at his hyperbole, rolling her eyes. “Don’t mention it.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	38. What about Byron?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first Thanksgiving in Ella and Jess’s new apartment doesn’t go exactly according to plan.

Humming a She Wants Revenge song under her breath, Ella leaned back against the cabinets and dried the fragile dishes. She was reminded of their days at the diner as Jess stood over the kitchen sink washing them. From her spot sitting on the counter right next to him, she could admire his profile and feel her cheeks heat up at the sight. He had grown into himself so well. But his beauty and her comfort at his presence were probably the only things keeping her nerves at bay. The dishes, her mother’s, had come in the mail from Fiona only two days earlier. White faux China adorned with pinkish-red roses. Ella had taken a few moments to recognize them, since there had been no note along with them. But then she remembered family holidays when her mother would take them out, only used for the most special occasions. Even though they were chipped in some places and had been bought at a rummage sale just after her parents had gotten married. 

The dishes were where the plans for the holiday truly started to form. Chris, Leo, Matthew, and Mabel all had other engagements which took them out of town for Thanksgiving. Ella and Jess were still unsure of what they were doing. Adam was going to Noah’s, Fiona was going to her sister’s. Still, no word from Jake. Jess was wary of staying in Stars Hollow, though his time at the community center therapist’s office had been doing him well. They bounced him around to a different counselor each time he went, and talking to a complete stranger about all his issues hadn’t come easy, still wasn’t coming easy. But maybe just the fact that he was trying made him feel better. 

On a whim, at the sight of the dishes, Ella had a wild idea. Instead of going to Stars Hollow, why not bring Stars Hollow to Philadelphia? The dishes were meant to be used. She couldn’t neglect them like an instrument unplayed. Not her mother’s dishes. And when she’d run it by Jess, he’d been more receptive than she’d thought he would be. Maybe he was just surprised she was open to contacting anyone from her family at all. She still seemed so standoffish about them, since the graduation ceremony. And the apartment wasn’t big, but certainly they could handle a few people over for one afternoon. Julie, Michael, and their girls would be in attendance. Along with Luke and Lorelai. But, when Liz and TJ heard Luke and Lorelai were coming, they somehow managed to invite themselves. 

Jess wasn’t thrilled about it, and neither was Ella, but they were trying to keep level heads. Plan everything in advance and keep the day-of to a low-stress affair. It was only Monday, and they were already washing the dishes. It made Ella feel slightly more secure. And she had the whole week off, leaving plenty more time to prepare. Luke and Lorelai were also coming on Wednesday and staying the night at a motel, though Ella and Jess insisted they didn’t need to help. Ella was shocked Luke was willing to be away from the diner for more than one day, let alone Thanksgiving. Maybe getting back with Lorelai after Rory’s graduation had changed his outlook on life a bit.

She uttered a small sigh as she dried yet another dish, stressing herself out with the storm of thoughts raging in her head. A throb was starting behind her eyes. 

“What’s up?” Jess asked, handing her another plate, his hands reddish and dripping from the hot water.

Ella shook her head slightly. “Nothing. Doesn’t it just seem a little bourgeois of us to have a set of dishes?”

“I don’t know. I think we’re exempt, considering you got these from your mom, who got them from someone else,” Jess pointed out, his voice light. “Sharing is caring for the proletariat.”

Snickering, she let a small smile cross her lips. “Well, it’ll have to be, considering we’re trying to fit eleven people in a shoebox.”

“It won’t be that bad,” Jess continued, trying to sound reassuring. She had been quiet and fidgety all evening, and he wondered just how wound up about the event she really was. Ella had a tendency to spread herself too thin and regret it when it was already too late. 

“Look at you, Mr. Sunshine,” she quipped as she dried the last plate.

Jess shut off the water and watched the soapy foam begin to circle down the drain. He wiped his hands on his jeans, eyeing the tall stack of dishes which sat on Ella’s other side. She was right. Even a chipped set of plates didn’t look quite correct in their faded, out of date kitchen. But he only shrugged off the nerves. They were in for it, and there was nothing they could do about it. He came to stand in between Ella’s legs. She brought her arms to rest on his shoulders as he shifted closer.

“I’m working on my positive outlook.”

She snorted a laugh. “Good luck.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Well, that wasn’t very convincing.”

“I just don’t know if I’d be able to handle you waking up to a motivational tape every morning,” she said, shrugging.

Jess smirked. “That’s cute. But it’s not 1985 anymore. It would be a motivational  _ CD _ , at least.”

“Maybe you could start with reading that self-help book again?” she suggested, teasing. “Maybe Luke could bring it up for you on Wednesday?”

“Touché,” he replied. 

“Hey,” she began, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, “I kinda like that you read that book.”

He scoffed. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said, searching his face for a moment. “Just seems exactly like something you would do...in a good way. Are you sure you’re okay with seeing your mom and everything?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I promise,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Okay. But just tell me if you’re not okay. I can kick them out without a second thought,” she said with mock gravity. “There’s a reason I was Luke’s favorite waitress.”

Jess chuckled. “Good to know.”

Then, she took a deep, tired breath. Tilting his head at her, he noticed the constant tinge of pink on her cheeks, and the way she seemed to sit as though the weight of the world was on her limbs. 

“You okay, Stevens?” he asked.

“Other than the sense of impending doom...yeah, I’d say I’m doing alright,” she said.

Furrowing his brows, he brought the back of one hand to her cheek. 

She groaned in annoyance at his needless concern. “You can’t get all Mother Hen on me now, Mariano. We’ve got pies to bake and a turkey to roast.”

“Elle, if-”

“I’m  _ fine _ , Jess,” she continued, swatting his hand away when he attempted to move it to her forehead. “It’s just PMS. I have cramps, too. Don’t worry about it.”

After a moment, he finally managed an unconvinced: “Okay.”

. . .

Wednesday afternoon brought flurries of snow in stray showers throughout the day. A crisp, biting wind blew through the Philadelphia air, but it still felt a bit warmer than Connecticut to Lorelai. She could already smell the fragrance of pie as they approached the door of Jess and Ella’s apartment. It was odd, to say the least, standing in the dingy, grayish hallway of the building in front of the door, adorned with a rusty ‘7.’ A flash of memory crossed her mind, sitting in the living room of her home, braiding Ella’s hair. She’d warned Ella back then not to get involved with Jess, told her he was trouble. Sometimes, when she heard through the Lane grapevine about fights the two had, Lorelai wondered if she should have done more to protect Ella. She remembered nights comforting her on the couch after her mother died, feeling helpless and unable to get Ella to work through her emotions. Often, Ella would just sit there staring at the television screen, with the same glazed expression no matter what they were watching. Even after Rory fell asleep, Lorelai would stay up with her. Just to be there.

She knew what it was to be alone at such a young age. And she knew what it was to fall for a boy who didn’t deserve you just to escape the isolation. Sometimes, Ella reminded her more of herself than even Rory. But Rory had been on her mind every waking second in those days. And she had, somehow, let Ella slip through the cracks. Go on a rocky path with Jess. Not that it hadn’t turned out alright in the end. Even Luke approved, despite how against it all he had been at first. But Lorelai was still unsure of Jess, even after so many years. She was civil when they crossed paths, but actually spending a day inside the home Ella shared with him was a different matter entirely. All she’d ever seen of him were the angriest, nastiest moments. She didn’t like the idea of Ella having to weather such a storm for the rest of her life, simply because she and Jess had been together for so long.

“You gonna knock, or what?” Luke asked, his wide, expectant eyes flicking between the door and Lorelai. His hands were full of the sides he’d made the day before. One tupperware with garlic mashed potatoes, the other with glazed carrots; he knew how much Ella liked them. She’d always taken the leftovers from the diner when they were offered.

Lorelai nodded. “Yes. Just preparing myself to right walk into a John Hughes movie.”

“I told you, Lorelai,” Luke said gruffly, rolling his eyes. “He’s changed. They both have.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Well, you’re getting the chance to. Just please knock on the damn door before my arms give out,” Luke said. 

Lorelai scoffed, then raised a gloved hand and knocked. She was surprised how quickly Jess came to greet them, a thin smile on his face as he took their coats and the tupperwares from Luke. He seemed rushed, and there was a pink, checkered apron tied around his hips. It stood out against his otherwise all-black t-shirt and jeans ensemble. She was surprised to see a respectable haircut on his head. 

“Hey. Make yourself at home. I gotta make sure the sugar doesn’t burn,” he said, then hurried back into the kitchen as they took off their shoes. 

“Thanks,” Lorelai muttered, looking around the place.

It was surprisingly cozy, homey, considering the run-down state of the building. There were a few throw blankets draped over the back of the couch, and cacti planted in small pots on one of the end tables near the sliding glass door. Through it, she could see two mismatched armchairs next to each other on the tiny balcony. Art lined the walls. A few posters, famous photography, paintings and drawings Lorelai could recognize as Ella’s from their mixture of horror and botanicals. Stepping into the living room as Luke immediately offered to help Jess, she spotted a couple pictures in small frames, sitting on the end table sans cacti. 

In one, Ella sat on Jess’s lap inside what looked to be a dive bar. Ella’s left arm was hooked around the back of Jess’s neck, and she used her free hand to gesture. Her lips were curling up at the edges as she spoke some word frozen in time. Jess had his head thrown back in laughter at whatever Ella had said. The sight made Lorelai’s eyebrows raise just a touch. She didn’t think she had ever heard Jess truly laugh at anything. The next picture saw Ella and Jess together in a train seat, the scenery passing them by through a small window. They were both asleep, Ella’s head on Jess’s shoulder, and Jess’s head on top of Ella’s. In another, just Ella was in the shot. She was glancing at the camera, not quite smiling but looking serene as she sat on a beach towel, the waves captured in mid-crash behind her. Still, Lorelai’s surprise grew. Ella hated the ocean.

“Nice apron, by the way,” Luke said, smirking at Jess as he rounded the corner to take a seat at the island. 

Jess gave a sardonic grin in response, looking down at himself and blushing. “Thanks. Eleanor said it wouldn’t really feel like a pie day without it.”

“Oh, God, the pie days,” Lorelai piped up, groaning fondly at the memory. She came over to take the stool next to Luke. She had to admit, watching Jess stir a pot on the stove in a pink apron like a portrait of Donna Reed made a giggle rise in her throat. “I don’t miss those.”

“You weren’t the one she was waking up before the sunrise to get inside and use your oven because hers didn’t have convection!” Luke argued.

Lorelai snorted. “No, but I was the one who had to hear you rant about it before you gave me my morning coffee.”

“Need I remind you all that we always sold every slice?” Ella chimed in, emerging from the bedroom.

Lorelai smiled as she swiveled around on the stool. Ella wasn’t wearing any makeup and she was dressed in a large flannel and leggings. Her hair was messy and down. Maybe her style had changed since the grunge-goth diner phase. 

“Hey! I told  _ you _ to stay in bed!” Jess said, raising his eyebrows and pointing a wooden spoon at Ella from the kitchen. 

Ella rolled her eyes, going over and giving Lorelai and Luke hugs of greeting. “Why would I stay in bed when there’s so much excitement out here?”

She waltzed into the kitchen next to Jess, eyes roaming over the mess of flour and spices and bowls and pie tins he had laid out next to the stove. She could tell by the smell of the apartment the apple was currently in the oven. It looked like he was working on the pecan next. 

“Maybe because you just got your appendix taken out, like, twelve hours ago?” Jess said emphatically, eyes widening at her.

“ _ What _ ?” Luke asked.

“Is that why Jess is doing his  _ Leave it to Beaver  _ routine? I thought he was filling in because you were getting ready,” Lorelai said, a startled lilt in her tone. “But instead you just got your organs rearranged?”

“I had a  _ minor _ surgery and I’m fine now,” Ella said, casual and content. The medicine they’d given her at the hospital hadn’t quite worn off yet, but she had been high around parental figures more than once. She could hold her own. She could even ignore the troubling notions about gender roles deeply ingrained in Lorelai’s comment, in the spirit of keeping arguments to a minimum. She glanced at the mixture Jess was beginning in the big blue bowl. “Just make sure to-”

“I’m following the recipes you gave me,” Jess cut in defensively. “If you’re not gonna stay in bed like you should, can you at least sit down and not backseat bake?”

Lorelai gave the two a suspicious glance. There was the bite in Jess’s voice. The one she could remember so well.

Ella gave a heavy sigh through her nose. Of all the weeks to get appendicitis. Pie-making was probably her favorite part of the winter months. “ _ Fine _ . But I’m playing my Joni Mitchell record and you can’t complain about it.”

“You’re sick. You’re allowed to play whatever you want. You’re just not allowed to rip your stitches open,” Jess said, shrugging and gaining a teasing tone again. The smirk returned.

“I’m not  _ sick _ , jackass,” she snapped.

Lorelai pursed her lips, looking over at Luke with eyes full of nostalgia. “Is it just me or have we been transported back to 2002?”

“Seems like it,” Luke mumbled, watching them bicker like they always had.

Before Ella could turn on her heel to leave the kitchen, heading for the record player in the corner of the living room, Jess put down his spoon and stopped her with a: “Hold on.”

“What?” she asked.

He took a couple steps towards her, wiping his hands on the apron before placing his palm on her forehead, feeling how warm it was. Then, he transferred the backs of his fingers to her rosy cheek. “Do you need more Ibuprofen?”

“Not for a couple hours,” she replied, more honest than he was expecting. Banter aside, he could see the fatigue in her glassy eyes. “It’s fine. The doctor said I could have a fever for up to forty-eight hours after surgery.”

“I know. Just checking,” he said, then dropped his hand as she made her way out.

Again, Lorelai’s confusion deepened. She couldn’t hide the crease on her forehead as she furrowed her brows at the interaction. Was Jess really playing nurse? Without complaint?

“I can’t believe you got her to a doctor at all,” Luke said.

Jess scoffed, looking down at the mixture as he stirred. “Only after she passed out on the bathroom floor because her fever was so high.”

“ _ What _ ?!” Luke repeated, instantly panicked.

“Tell them every detail of our lives, why don’t you, chatty Kathy?” Ella grumbled as she put the record on. “I’m fine now.” 

A wave of relaxation washed over her as Joni Mitchell’s voice sounded. She went to the couch and threw an old blanket over herself, facing the kitchen. 

“My God, Ella. It’s just like that time you broke your arm,” Lorelai said knowingly, going over to join Ella on the couch. She put a comforting hand on Ella’s knee. “Seriously, sweetie, you can’t just expect an organ to abracadabra out of your body.”

“Damn, if only Jess was still doing those magic tricks,” Ella teased in retaliation, narrowing her eyes at Jess as he glared at her through the opening to the kitchen. 

Soon, he and Luke were enveloped in their own sporadic, monosyllabic conversation and it made Ella crack a small smile of nostalgia. She raked her hands through her hair as Lorelai began to ask about the apartment, how school was going. It was strange having such a long conversation with her. They hadn’t engaged in their old, pseudo mother-daughter dynamic in a long time. Part of Ella felt as though she were back to being fifteen again. But another part of her felt so elementally different. Able to recognize how much Lorelai had helped her in a way she simply hadn’t been able to comprehend as a teenager. Sure, she was beyond grateful even when she was young. But, now, she wondered if and where she would be if Lorelai hadn’t been there to help her following her mother’s death, or even in her life before. She probably wouldn’t have gotten a job at Luke’s, considering Lorelai was the one who had initially asked Luke to help the Stevens out and give them leftovers every once in a while. Who knew if Ella and Jess would have ever gotten together. The ‘what-ifs’ spinning around in her head only served to fill her heart with warmth for Lorelai. Not only due to the lingering effects of the hospital drugs. 

“You said Rory’s still following Obama?” Ella asked, leaning against the side of the couch. She had never had surgery before, and never knew how absolutely exhausted she would be afterwards. 

Lorelai nodded, taking a sip of the water Luke had brought her. He was currently fighting to get in the kitchen with Jess, who was still insistent on making the pies entirely by himself. 

“Yeah, she’s gonna be with him until the inauguration in January,” Lorelai explained. “She’s Woodward and Bernsteining it up in Chicago right now. They’ve been making stops all around the country for months.”

“Wow,” Ella said, a soft smile still playing on her lips. “She’s really doing it. I can’t even imagine how happy she must be. I mean, I always knew she would. But it’s finally happening.”

“I know. Just a few steps closer to Christian Amanpour,” Lorelai agreed proudly, beaming. “But, hey, you don’t seem to be doing too bad yourself.”

“Yeah. Only a few more months and I’ll finally have that damn degree. The dean’s been talking to me about teaching after I graduate, at least part-time. I don’t know, though. I’m still mulling it over,” Ella said, thinking back to the meetings she’d been having recently. Her own classroom, her own office, her own space to create and guide others to create. And, of course, she could still work making art for Truncheon. The more she thought about it, dreamed about it, and talked it over with Jess, the more she could see herself staying at Penn for longer than just the end of the spring semester. 

Lorelai’s face was unreadable for a moment, as she swallowed dryly and looked down into her drink. “And you’re really happy here? This is...this is what you want?”

Ella’s face fell just a touch. She had thought maybe such a question was coming. Lorelai had never loved Jess, never even liked him. Part of Ella thought it was completely understandable. An angry teenager who steals beer and pulls stupid pranks and walks out of town without a word? Dick moves, all of them. But Lorelai had never seen anything else from Jess. She had never made the effort to. She didn’t know him.

As she met Lorelai’s eyes once again, Ella gave a careful, sincere nod. “Really. I get to work on my art every day. I get to collect records and plant cactuses and I get to...I don’t have to live for anyone else. I even get to make pies, when I don’t have nine stitches in my side. I never wanted...I never wanted much else.”

“I know,” Lorelai replied, voice hushed with emotion. She glanced back over at her shoulder at the two men in the kitchen, now begrudgingly tag-teaming the desserts. “And Jess?” 

. . .

The light was fading to an orangey glow by the time everyone had finished up dessert. Julie, Michael, and the girls had to start the drive to New Britain back almost right after, since Michael had work the following morning. Ella was sad to see them go. They were the ones who made her ache for her mother in a not altogether unpleasant way. The day Ella had lost her mother, Julie had lost her big sister. Forever, the two of them would be linked by the trauma. But not just the trauma. Julie provided a home away from home when Ella needed one. And Ella was a makeshift babysitter whenever Julie called. Julie was the only member of Ella’s family who was truly reliable, the one she could count on. Aside from the family she had found in Philadelphia. 

But the apartment was still lively with noise as afternoon slowly melted away into evening. Liz and TJ danced near the kitchen to the sound of the Grateful Dead record on the turntable. Off in their own strange world. Ella didn’t mind. She’d been giving Jess’s hand comforting squeezes all day long, noticing how his shoulders were just a touch more tense and his words came out in short, anxious bursts when he spoke to his mother. He wasn’t completely miserable, though. At least, that was what he told her each time she asked. 

Maybe the work of setting up the apartment and serving the food helped, keeping him busy. No matter how many times she tried to help him arrange the card tables for everyone to sit at, or put out the dishes, or clean any noticeably dirty surface, he’d only shrugged her off with some snarky remark and made her sit down. Once Luke and Lorelai got there, she could barely shift in her seat without one of the three pairs of watchful eyes landing on her in concern. It was sweet of them, really, but still made her squirm under their gaze. And pissed that she couldn’t enjoy the first Thanksgiving in the apartment the way she wanted to. 

Stomach as full as it could be (the surgery had left her appetite at next to nothing), she sat comfortably on the old couch, Luke and Lorelai in the folding chairs across the card table from her. Luke was busy ranting about how corrupt Black Friday and malls in general were to Lorelai, making a sentimental twinkle spark in Ella’s hazel eyes. She was glad they’d had enough room to fit three tables in the space, with four seats at each. The set-up was arguably too tight, but they’d managed. Erin and Annie had only spilled two cups of milk over the course of the night. 

Ella felt a sleepy calm beginning to settle in her body. Through the sliding glass doors, she could see a little sliver of the sunset. Soon, the sky would cloud over and there would be another spray of early snow. The room smelled of wintry spices and hot gravy. Jess still hadn’t reached Luke’s level of perfection, but he had done a pretty damn good job with dinner. And, she had to admit, the pies weren’t too shabby either. It shocked her how seamlessly he had pulled it all off, in his element as he put it together. Though not without a scowl and some huffy breaths. 

Ella looked back at Jess, sitting to her left. He held Doula in his arms. She sat on his lap, facing him, as his hands gently supported her back. She was a little over six months old, and almost able to sit up on her own. But, Jess figured it’d be best to keep his hands where they were for some insurance. The baby had somehow tugged the pendant of his necklace out from beneath his shirt, and was alternating between staring at it in wonderment and sucking on it. Jess was having some murmured conversation with her, and she occasionally responded with a gurgle or a coo. Even a laugh when he tickled her stomach. 

Ella watched in awe. She remembered how terrified he’d been when he’d first met her nieces, at a Thanksgiving long past. But, now, he handled his sister, along with her nieces, with such ease. He had found a deck of cards for old time’s sake, put on a little magic show for the kids during the lull between dinner and dessert. He’d convinced Annie the smaller half of the wishbone was still lucky when Erin had broken off the bigger half. Just because it didn’t look as big, he said, didn’t mean the magic wasn’t as big. When he realized Ella had caught him saying it, he’d looked away with a scarlet flush and cleared his throat. Sometimes, she could really see the writer in the way he spoke. 

“What about Hemingway?” he asked quietly as Doula looked up from the pendant with giant brown eyes and drool dripping down her chin. 

Doula gave a little squawk of noise, then swatted one sticky hand up to pat Jess’s face. He scrunched up his nose and chuckled. Then, Doula went back to marveling at the small, circular pendant. 

“See?” Jess said, tossing a glance at Ella. He could feel her soft gaze. “Doula likes Hemingway.”

Ella scoffed. “Then her taste is just as bad as her brother’s.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Jess said to the baby, leaning in with a conspiratory whisper. “She likes poetry. Like she can criticize anyone for their taste.”

Narrowing her eyes playfully at Jess, Ella put an arm around his shoulders and inched closer to the two of them. “What about Byron, Doula?”

Doula didn’t look up, instead grabbing the pocket of Jess’s t-shirt in her pudgy fist. 

Jess smirked pointedly at Ella.

Ella rolled her eyes. “You’ve taken her to the dark side already.”

“If you mean the right side, then yes,” Jess shot back. 

Snorting a laugh, Ella pressed a kiss to Jess’s cheek. Her freckled face became almost wistful. Her raspy whisper near his ear was so sincere it made Jess’s stomach do a flip. “I love you.”

“Love you back,” Jess replied, his voice barely audible over all the others in the room. 

She was almost surprised he said anything at all. She hadn’t expected reciprocation with so many people around, and it made a joyful tingling spread from her center out to her fingers and toes. She ran an absent hand through the ends of his hair, a smile painted on her lips. 

“Thank you for doing this, Jess,” she said. “You’re the fucking best.”

“ _ Language _ , Eleanor,” Jess scolded, gesturing playfully to Doula, who still fiddled obliviously with the necklace.

Ella snickered. “Right, sorry, sorry. I’m just...you didn’t have to do all this. I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t mean to go and get appendicitis.” 

“It’s not your fault,” he said, eyes still trained carefully on the baby in case something unforeseen happened. He was more confident in his childcare abilities than he had once been, but there was still an untrained fear within him that she would tumble straight out of his lap. “Don’t worry, Stevens. I don’t do things I don’t wanna do.” 

“ _ Sure _ you don’t, James Dean,” she teased. “You’re not a good liar.”

“Look who’s talking,” he quipped in return, a smirk still present on his face. “Besides, it was better than scraping plates in the diner all day at Thanksgiving. After doing that a couple years in a row, it’s pretty much nowhere to go but up from now on.”

“It’s true,” she said. “Maybe I should do the dishes, just in case there’s any rogue knives in the sink.”

“Very funny,” he deadpanned, thinking of the scar which had almost completely faded from his left hand. “But I’m still not falling for it. You’re not helping me clean up. You’re gonna watch  _ Carrie  _ and then fall asleep so we don’t have to go back to the hospital with your guts spilling out.”

“I’m not allowed to swear in front of her, but you’re allowed to say stuff like that?” Ella asked, laughing through her words. 

“Hey, I don’t make the rules,” Jess joked coolly.

“You really don’t need to clean up by yourself,” Ella continued, not budging. “My stitches aren’t even in the double digits. I could at least help you put the leftovers away.”

“The next time you find me passed out on the bathroom floor with a high fever, then you can tell me all about how much you want to see me cleaning the apartment,” Jess said.

Her smile disappeared. Sighing through her nose in embarrassment, Ella nodded. She swallowed dryly. “Fair enough.”

She couldn’t have been out for more than thirty seconds or a minute. She didn't hit her head or anything. The bathmat had cushioned her fall almost entirely. But she had never passed out before. She’d felt almost as terrified as Jess sounded when he practically carried down to the car and sped to the emergency room. He was right. If the situation were reversed, there was no way in hell he’d be cleaning up alongside her. Especially not a day and a half after surgery. She had to remember the last time she hadn’t been feeling like herself. With a migraine and period cramps right when she felt as though everyone was expecting the most from her. But it was just in her head. It was okay to let go every once in a while. It was okay. She reminded herself that he wasn’t trying to tell her what to do. He was only asking her to take care of herself. That, she could try. She didn’t ever want to put him out like this again. And she didn’t ever want to see the look she had seen on his face when he’d been driving to the hospital again. Not if she could help it.

“But, if it’ll make you feel better, we can have everyone over next weekend and do Thanksgiving food,” Jess suggested. “Chris was pissed he was missing the pies. I don’t think he’d mind if we had a do-over.”

“Yeah, that sounds good, Mariano,” she said. Then, after a moment’s pause: “I’m sorry. I know I can get so wound up.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed,” he teased.

“I was just excited for my pies,” she admitted. “But, just for the record, you did a kickass job with them. Sorry I was freaking out.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “So, you’re not a good patient. Who cares? I was excited for your pies too. Just please don’t make rhubarb. All the rhubarb makes me think about is Kirk running naked through the town square that time after Christmas.” 

And she felt a beaming smile spread over her face as she laughed and gave him a nod of confirmation. She pressed another kiss to his cheek and told him she would make him any pie he wanted. And she felt even more sure of the words she’d spoken to Lorelai the day before. Lorelai had been surprised to hear them, but Ella couldn’t bring herself to be even the least bit shocked as they’d come out of her mouth. She felt it more confidently than she ever had before, seeing him cradle his baby sister in the aftermath of a Thanksgiving he’d put together all by himself, without being asked. Because Jess was Jess. And it was just what he did. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	39. Not Joyce or Monet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess publishes his second book and Ella receives a troubling call from Stars Hollow.

Flopping face-first down onto the bed, Ella breathed a sigh of relief. It would have felt strange not to have a little champagne at Jess’s book launch party. But, she was a lightweight. She was floating somewhere between tipsy, buzzed, and drunk. At least she was still capable of slipping off her shoes before making her way to the bedroom. She’d even managed to change into pajamas, brush her teeth, and wash her face. A far cry from the screwdriver incident at Liz’s baby shower. A heavy winter snow fell outside the windows and a touch of cold air seeped into the draughty apartment. Goosebumps rose lightly on her skin. In her state, they felt nice instead of uncomfortable. She was already dozing when Jess came in, having taken a quick shower. His hair was still damp as he climbed into bed next to her, the movement shaking her from her haze. 

“Did you like your party?” she murmured, watching as he shut off the lamp and rolled over to face her.

His face was aglow with the bluish light of the snowy Saturday evening. “Mhm.”

She snickered a bit at his nonchalance. “I know you hate parties, but Chris insisted it was the best way to drum up business. And you  _ do _ like surprises, Mr. Spontaneity. Matthew and I made it as lowkey as we could.”

“It wasn’t so bad, Eleanor. Really,” he said, shrugging. “You’re remembering that you whispered lines from  _ Catch-22 _ in my ear all night, right?”

“I figured you’d need some Joseph Heller to make it through,” she explained, slightly sheepish. 

Jess smiled. “Of course. And watching Chris and Leo get so drunk they do their acapella version of ‘Under Pressure’ could never be bad.”

“Leo does do a damn good Freddie Mercury,” Ella agreed, chuckling. “I didn’t realize the publishing agents would all go blackout level, too.”

“Oh, yeah. You should’ve seen what Chris did for the  _ Subsect  _ launch. It was like that scene where E.T. gets drunk. But if there were fifty aliens in the movie instead of just one,” Jess said flatly, begrudgingly. 

“You must be a little drunk if you’re letting a cheesy eighties movie slip. Or have I  _ finally _ converted you?” she teased, snuggling deeper into the pillow. 

Jess smirked. “Not yet. Chris made me try his Manhattans to see if they ‘tasted too much like gasoline.’”

“I have a sneaking suspicion that they did,” Ella said.

“Someone give the lady a prize,” Jess shot back tiredly. “Good thing we walked there.”

“Yeah. And good thing I got to watch you catch a snowflake with your tongue on the way back.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed, cutie,” she said, forcing her laughter down. “I’ll be eating my words when you watch me fall on my ass while we’re ice-skating with April.”

She knew if he’d been entirely sober, he wouldn’t have gotten so caught up in his wonderment at the storm. But Ella had also seen him sticking out his tongue awaiting a snowflake in an old, yellowing photo album Liz had shown off during her baby shower. In it, Jess had been no more than three. Dressed in a raggedy winter jacket on some grimy corner of New York City. He and Liz were sticking their tongues out together. Seeing the photo had given Ella’s mouth a bittersweet taste. It was hard to imagine Jess ever feeling so relaxed around his mother. She saw the same rare awe from him on the walk home. Most of the time, he was so weighed down by the world he could barely come up for air. She thought she had never seen him look so young at heart before. 

“Can’t wait,” Jess hummed, mocking. It was nearly time for April’s winter break, and Anna had somehow agreed to let her spend it with Luke, Lorelai, and Rory. Ella and Jess had opted to return to Stars Hollow for Christmas, after the bumps in the road on Thanksgiving. Two more days, and they’d be braving the icy roads on their way up to Connecticut. April had already called them to schedule a time for ice-skating. The proper, analytical way the little girl spoke never failed to amuse Ella. 

“Me neither,” Ella quipped as her eyelids began to droop again. She could smell the minty scent of Jess’s shampoo. 

As he watched her begin to drift off, he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. From what Matthew had said, Ella had essentially been put in charge of the party when Chris’s trademark irresponsibility made an appearance. Matthew had jury duty and couldn’t assume his usual role of organizer in the wake of Chris’s chaotic decision-making. What she’d managed to throw together, though, was one of the better parties Jess had ever been to. The publishers they knew usually sent younger employees to the underground press launches, and Chris had ended up making friends with most of the usual suspects at the launch for Jess’s first book. Ella had made sure the guest list only included familiar faces. If they just had to throw him a surprise party, which Chris demanded (normally, she wouldn’t have listened, but if it was a matter of getting his book better exposure, she was willing to risk it), she’d try to make it as comfortable for him as possible. Or, at the very least, bearable. 

And she’d just gotten done with finals two days earlier. He could see how tired she was. Her nerves over the possibility of seeing her father during the winter holidays hadn’t helped her sleeping recently either. Though Jess wasn’t sure how it would actually pan out, she claimed she wanted an attempt at apologizing for what she’d said at Adam’s graduation. She was sick of family nonsense, she said. Maybe if she levelled the playing field, they could begin to understand each other again. Ella herself wasn’t sure exactly what had sparked her desire to try again with her family, but suspected it might have been Thanksgiving. Jess, simply put, was someone she admired. Seeing him trying to mend his relationships (even though he didn’t have to, even though it was difficult), made her feel just a little more confident. Maybe not everything turned out bad, after all. 

Shutting his own eyes, Jess slipped his hand beneath Ella’s shirt, his fingertips ghosting over her back. She smiled softly at his touch, feather-light. A pleasant shiver rolled through her.

“Thank you for the party,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Well, thanks for writing my new favorite book,” she answered instantly, sleepy and sincere. “I’m so fucking proud of you.”

. . .

There were still a couple hours left until lunchtime when Ella slipped through the door at Truncheon, but it wasn’t entirely uncommon for her to show up and work a little. Especially when she was on break from school and got antsy. Jess had debated giving her the easel he’d bought her for Christmas early, so she would have something new to focus on while he tied up the odds and ends at the book press. But, ultimately, he wanted to wait until the morning after they returned to Philadelphia. It would be far more surprising to wake up and find a Christmas present wrapped up in the living room on the morning of New Year’s Day than on the actual gift-giving holiday. 

When he’d left for his last day of work prior to their trip to Connecticut, she’d still been half asleep. Her sketchbook was open on her bedside table, a pencil drawing of a child with hollow eyes having yet to be shaded. She’d been up late working on it the night before, on a roll. He hadn’t even shut the door to the apartment before she was out cold again. He’d been anxious to get back home, to pack and prepare for the trip. In his opinion, there was no use in only opening for a Monday and then closing for the holidays the rest of the week, but Matthew’s stickler spirit won out. Jess wasn’t going to be skipping around the store in merriment as the rest of the world took a vacation, but he also wasn’t moping around like Chris. He was in the midst of diffusing an argument between his two coworkers when Ella arrived.

He wanted to smile when he saw her, and almost did. But then he got a good look at her hazel eyes, and immediately he could tell something was wrong. It wasn’t that she was sleepy, though she looked a bit haggard in with her peacoat tied around her haphazardly and her hair wild, dotted with the snowflakes falling steadily outside. Instead, she looked almost unreachable. His Eleanor who was always so present and vivid and alive, even in the midst of drudgery. And she wasn’t daydreaming, either. She wasn’t off in her own thoughts, thinking of Emily Dickinson or James Joyce or Claude Monet. No; she was simply not there. Not really.

“Hey, honey. You’re early,” he began as she approached him, where he stood in between Matthew and Chris. The two of them didn’t even notice she’d come in until Jess addressed her, still too caught up in their argument over where to place the new books of free-form poetry. 

Swallowing harshly, Ella gave a weak smile and raked her fingers through her hair. She walked up to them, wringing her hands together. Jess didn’t need to see her hands to know she had already bitten her nails down to the quick. At the interruption, Chris gave a frustrated huff and turned to Ella.

“Ella, please tell Matthew it makes zero sense to put the free-form poetry anywhere near the sonnets! They should be on opposite ends of the store, as far as I’m concerned,” he exclaimed in exasperation. 

Matthew rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as his jaw clenched. “I’m glad you’re here, Ella. Please tell  _ Chris _ that we don’t only sell poetry, and free-form or not, it has no business anywhere near science fiction!”

Furrowing her brows, distracted, Ella shook her head. “Um...I don’t know...but I….”

“What?” Jess asked as she gestured slightly with her hands. Her face was pale, and she almost seemed confused, at a loss for words. It didn’t happen to her often, to say the least.

Blowing out a breath, she tried again, jerking her thumb back over her shoulder. “Back at the apartment...I just got a call from my brother. My dad’s dead.”

Jess’s heart dropped into his stomach. “ _ What _ ?”

“Yeah,” Ella said, nodding. As she continued, she took a hair elastic from her wrist and began pulling her locks into a ponytail. “Adam said he was in a car accident this morning. Driving home from some bar in Maryland. If I had to guess, he was still a little drunk from last night. No one else got hurt, which is good. He hit a patch of black ice, and he was going too fast, and I guess he just went right off the road. Into a tree. And he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt.”

Her speech became more urgent with every word, as they heard it sink in for her in real time. But she was never frantic, only determined and stern. The spacey fog was fading from her demeanor, though it remained in her eyes. Only in her eyes. She didn’t give them time to respond, just kept thinking out loud.

“Noah’s already on a plane from Oregon, but I don’t think he’s gonna be any help. And Adam said Fiona’s freaking out, so I’m almost definitely going to have to make the arrangements. I know you guys have work and stuff, but we need to pack up and get there before the rest of the family does, or everything will probably just explode on principle. Fuck! This is just like him. To die a week before Christmas!”

“Whoa, hey, Eleanor, just slow down for a second, okay?” Jess began, taking a hesitant step towards her and grabbing her hand. He squeezed once, hard, hoping to calm her down at least a little. 

“Jesus, Ella-” Chris began.

“I’m so sorry,” Matthew said.

Ella shook her head, her face stoic. “Don’t, okay? Don’t be sorry. No one needs to be sorry. He was a fucking drunk, and it finally caught up with him. I just need to get back to Stars Hollow to take care of this, and then maybe Christmas won’t be completely ruined. Sound good?”

“Elle, just hold on. You should sit down and-” Jess said, but she cut him off.

“No, Jess. Seriously, I’m fine. Let’s just go and get it over with, and then it’ll be done,” she said, her hand never leaving his though she didn’t squeeze back. Her tone was tight, clipped, but she didn’t sound angry. He recognized it from the night on the bridge when she’d told him about the days following her mother’s death. The way she held it all together, and blocked it all out. Numb and headstrong.

“Do you want us to come with?” Matthew asked, watching with uncertainty as Ella began to tug Jess towards the door, grabbing his bag for him and handing him his coat. 

“What? Of course not,” Ella said, insistent, as though it were obvious. “All I need to do is steal Jess for a few days. You need to do whatever it is you’re gonna do with Mabel. And Chris needs to do whatever it is he’s gonna do with Leo, and you need to tell me about it when we get back. I can pretty much guarantee your stories will be more fun than mine.”

“Are you sure?” Chris chimed in, brow heavy with worry. Her iciness surprised him. He had never heard someone react to a parent’s death quite so flippantly before. 

“Yes. Jesus, Chris, keep up,” she replied, in a way which would have spurred a playful argument on a normal day. Again, her nonchalance unnerved all three of them. 

Jess interlocked their fingers again instantly once he had his bag and his coat, almost heading out the door already. She was moving too fast for him to process much of anything, only reacting. He hadn’t seen her in such a frenzy in a very long time. “Eleanor, wait. Stop.”

“I can’t stop, Jess. I told you, we’ve gotta get there before my uncle has time to hit on Fiona and before Noah has time to piss off Adam. It’s fine. I promise. I’m fine.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she pulled him out the front door instead. As they went, she shouted over her shoulder to Matthew and Chris: “Happy holidays! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

And then, she and Jess were gone. Chris and Matthew exchanged concerned, flabbergasted glances.

. . .

Flashback was the word that came to the forefront of her mind, as she stared up at the ceiling in the Gilmore living room. Luke and Lorelai were trying, and she appreciated it. They could both tell she didn’t want to talk about it, only wanted a bit of normalcy after the long day. And they’d obliged. After all, they’d had practice. Lorelai knew exactly what to do. She’d had Luke bring dinner home from the diner: turkey sandwiches and sodas. She’d suggested they watch a movie after dinner, something campy horror. Finally, they had settled on  _ The Lost Boys _ . Ella knew how much Jess hated the movie, especially Kiefer Sutherland’s mullet, but he never complained once. A large part of her wished he would. She wanted it to be the way it was supposed to be. She wanted to have Christmas in Stars Hollow with the people who felt more like her family than her father did. Adam celebrating with one of his school friends in Boston, Fiona with her sister, Noah with his finacée in Oregon. But, of course, things never went as planned. Not in Ella’s experience at least. 

At some point during the movie, she’d fallen asleep on the couch. No matter how much she wanted to stay awake until the end, she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Dealing with Fiona’s blubbering and Adam’s silence and Noah’s anger had pretty well exhausted her. Not to mention the business setting up the funeral at the church. She’d spent nearly two hours with the pastor, but the service was only halfway planned. She wished Aunt Julie could arrive sooner, but the girls were in school until Tuesday. Erin had some big recital she was pitching a fit about missing. Ella couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t want to be there if she didn’t have to be. No, they would arrive on Wednesday morning. Two hours before the funeral, set for noon. At some point before then, Ella would have to sort out the flower arrangements and the music and the programs. At least Luke was providing the food. She assumed he would before he even offered. And she would have to write the eulogy. But she wasn’t even thinking about it yet. Every time the idea of writing it entered her mind, she would start humming a Stevie Nicks song and pointedly ignore it.

It was all too familiar. The planning, the writing, the consoling. Since they’d arrived in Stars Hollow that afternoon, it had been a non stop barrage of tasks and tears. None of it was surprising. And it almost made her want to laugh. The minute she heard that her mother was dead, she had burst out laughing, a nervous reaction she couldn’t control. Granted, the laughter came from deep inside her, and probably resembled a pained shriek more than an actual giggle. But it was laughter nonetheless, and her father had recognized it as such. He’d yelled at her until his voice became hoarse. She knew it wouldn’t happen again. He was the dead one now, after all. But still, she didn’t let the anxious laughter escape. She didn’t let anything escape. After the punishment she’d received for letting go last time, she knew not to do it again. No one was there to smack her, to scream, but she just couldn’t bring herself to forget how it had felt. Like she couldn’t even grieve right. And the best way to grieve became to not grieve at all. 

She laid with one hand on her stomach and the other behind her head, analyzing the popcorn ceiling. She’d awoken with the room dim and the TV shut off. A quilt which she hadn’t fallen asleep under was draped over her, and there were hushed whispers in the direction of the kitchen. She hadn’t planned to wake up until morning, but she hadn’t planned to fall asleep there either. They were supposed to be sleeping in the apartment above the diner for the vacation, while Rory and April took the spare beds in the Gilmore house. But neither girl had yet to arrive, and Lorelai insisted Ella and Jess stay over after dinner. It was no use driving over in the snow, even if Luke’s was only about a minute away. Ella couldn’t believe how similar it all was to before. Sleeping alone on the Gilmore couch as others worried over her a few feet away. 

She listened, in spite of herself. It was too tempting not to eavesdrop when she’d already heard her name so many times. Luke was concerned about her forgetting to eat. Lorelai was concerned about her shutting everyone out and being overwhelmed by the funeral preparations. And both of them were concerned about her coming to blows with Fiona at some point in the next few days. 

Sighing, Ella ran her tongue over her teeth and remembered she hadn’t brushed them. She debated not doing so, but decided to just bite the bullet. With everything else on her mind, she thought it best to eliminate all the outward elements which might impede her from getting back to sleep. She rolled over on her side, preparing to sit up, when she saw Jess. She thought he’d be in the kitchen, talking with Luke and Lorelai. Instead, he sat on the floor with his back against the sofa. His head was near hers, leaned back. His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t snoring. She doubted he was fully asleep, but nonetheless attempted to get past him and rummage through the bag on the armchair to find her toothbrush. Her stealth proved lacking, however, when he began to stir as soon as she reached the bag. 

“Hey,” he said quietly, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands and doing his best to seem lively. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she replied, fishing her toothbrush out from the sea of clothes she’d thrown into the duffel before they sped away from the apartment in Philadelphia. “I just forgot to brush my teeth.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding and hoisting himself up. His neck was already sore from the position he’d dozed off in, unwilling to follow Luke and Lorelai into the kitchen with Ella asleep on the couch. “Me too. I’ll come with.”

She nodded back, grabbing his toothbrush as well. The whispers didn’t cease until they made their way into the kitchen, Luke and Lorelai looking up at their entrance. Ella debated using the upstairs bathroom, not disturbing the two of them. But she didn’t have the energy to climb the stairs, and it would be the first time she could get a good look at the new half-bathroom they added next to Rory’s room. The smell of the diner food lingered, and it made Ella’s chest feel just a touch less tight. Lorelai broke out into a small smile at the sight of the two of them. 

“You need anything, sweetie?” she asked, speaking only to Ella.

Though she felt a bit uncomfortable under everyone’s gaze, Ella smiled back. There was a warmth in her stomach at Lorelai’s voice. She focused on that feeling, and only that feeling. “No, we’re fine. Just brushing our teeth. The dentist would be pissed at me if I broke the pattern after over twenty years.”

“That’s true. Always best to avoid the Sweeney Todd dentistry possibility,” Lorelai agreed, nodding. Then, she yawned theatrically and looked at Luke, who only rolled his eyes at the dramatics. “I think we’re gonna head upstairs. It’s past our bedtime.”

“Still got those four o’clock deliveries, huh?” Jess asked sullenly, eyeing Luke. Many a morning when he was a teenager, he’d been awoken at half past three by the sound of Luke’s alarm. 

Luke sighed. “For the business that housed and fed you for two years? Yeah, I do.”

Ella snorted a laugh, and nudged Jess playfully in the ribs. “Like you’re not always up before the sun, even on Saturday.”

“Where do you think that started?” Jess shot back, pointing an accusatory finger at Luke. “He screwed with my internal clock for life!”

“I think that’s enough fuel for future therapy sessions for tonight,” Lorelai announced, rising from the table, Luke following. 

“Agreed,” Luke grumbled.

As they exchanged goodnights, Lorelai gave Ella a kiss on the cheek. Immediately after, she scrunched up her nose and smudged the lipstick from Ella’s freckled skin with her thumb. To Ella’s shock, Lorelai also gave Jess a short hug before making for the stairs. Luke hugged Jess, too. The two of them still had trouble showing physical affection for each other, as they probably always would. Ella had to stifle a laugh at the awkwardness between them.

When Luke hugged Ella, though, she felt tears prick at her eyes for the first time all day. She recognized his familiar smell, the soft feeling of his flannel, his strong arms around her. Somewhere in her mind, it occurred to her that the way it felt for Luke to hug her was what she had always wanted it to feel like when her own father hugged her. And she knew for sure she would never get it from him. She could finally be certain there was nothing left to do to repair her relationship with him. There was no time left for Jake to make her feel as safe as Luke made her feel. As he never had, even in her childhood. But by the time she and Luke broke apart, she had gathered herself enough. She cleared her throat and blinked away the glassy sheen in her eyes. 

Luke ruffled her hair as he stepped back from her. If he saw that she was upset, he didn’t acknowledge it. “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll get everything figured out tomorrow.”

“I know, boss,” she replied.

. . .

The cigarette smoke made her a bit nauseous, but it was also comforting in a way she was slightly ashamed of. The winter air was crisp and biting, and her cheeks were frosted roses. Embers glowed orange in the darkness as she took a long drag, burning her lungs. She was already regretting it, but she simply felt too tired to think out the actual consequences of what she was doing. She had tried. She really had. But falling asleep, with Jess snoring softly beneath her as they lay on the couch, was absolutely impossible. Fatigue was weighing down her bones, and there was a perpetual ache throbbing behind her eyes. But each time she got close to sleep, the thought of her father would flash across her mind, and she would be wide awake once more. 

Once she gave up, she had managed to sneak outside unnoticed. The wind whispered past her, hollow and haunting. But maybe everything was feeling spookier because death was at the forefront of her mind. Then again, when wasn’t it? Though the shock had certainly hit her with full force when she heard the news, she couldn’t bring herself to be surprised. The other shoe had dropped. She knew it would, just when she let her guard down. The moment she forgot to worry, the universe had knocked her down again. She flicked her cigarette and watched the excess ash melt a small spot in the snow below the steps. 

At the sound of the front door creaking open, she startled only a little. For a wild moment, she wanted to put her cigarette out and hide it behind her back, pretending to be innocent. Especially if it was Luke. But she had to remember she was a grown up. And the feeling disappeared entirely when she saw only a disheveled Jess wrapping himself up in his jacket as he came out onto the porch and sat down next to her.

“You’re gonna catch a cold out here,” he remarked, holding her peacoat out to her.

She took it with a trembling hand.

“Thank you,” she said solemnly, breathing out a long stream of smoke as she spoke. The coat was old and cheap, and did little to help a Connecticut winter, but she shrugged it on anyway.

He nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. “Don’t mention it.”

They sat in silence, an owl hooting somewhere in the trees beyond the house. Ella didn’t put the cigarette out until it got so small it began to burn her fingers. After she’d discarded it, her breath still puffed out, along with Jess’s, in frigid white clouds. Flurries of snow fell in scattered sprays, but the night was mostly quiet and overcast. Jess crossed his arms over his chest, waiting. 

She spoke, as he knew she eventually would, after a few more minutes. Gesturing down to the crushed cigarette, her tired eyes met his. “Do you want one?”

“No, thanks,” he said, shaking his head. “Where’d you get those in the middle of the night in Stars Hollow, anyway?”

A thin smirk ghosted over her lips. “Snatched ‘em off Bootsy’s newsstand.”

“Really?” he asked, laughing slightly, with eyebrows raised. 

She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Don’t act so surprised, Mariano. I was sneaking out of my bedroom window long before you got here.”

“Touché.” His eyes lingered on her, hair glistening golden in the soft light and eyes still far off somewhere miles away. He hesitated before he continued. “Did you walk all the way to Bootsy’s without a coat?”

She shrugged, glancing down at the Doc Martens on her feet. “I’m fine. I had my good shoes on. Besides, it’s only like a minute away.”

“Alright.”

“Seriously, Jess. I’m fine,” she snapped after a moment.

“Okay. I get it,” he said instantly. “You’re fine. You’re not cold.”

Ella ran her hands through her hair. Her body shook as she yawned.

“You wanna go back to bed?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“Are you sure?”   
  


“Jesus, Jess! Stop trying to take care of me! Stop asking me questions! Just let me fucking sit here!” Ella exclaimed, huffing in frustration.

Jess recoiled slightly, and he nodded at her again. He ran a hand over his mouth and swallowed down the million other questions which were rising in his throat. The ones she’d refused to ask on the drive up, and the ones she apparently still wanted to avoid. “Sorry.”

She rolled her eyes, mostly at herself. “No, I’m...I’m sorry. I’m just tired. I couldn’t fall asleep.”

“We don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to. We could watch one of Lorelai’s cassettes in there,” Jess suggested, fighting hard to keep his tone light, bracing for whatever reaction she was going to have.

“I love that she still has cassettes,” Ella said wistfully, though not smiling. Her voice was low and raspy as she stared out ahead of her into the darkness and the lightly falling snow.

He nodded a little. “I know you do.”

Ella’s hands were itching to hold another cigarette, but she fought the urge. The pack which sat on the porch steps next to her would almost certainly be crumpled up and thrown in the trash the moment she reentered the house. Along with the lighter. But it was nice to have them there. If she wanted. They sat wordlessly, listening to the rustle of the wind in the evergreen trees. Jess didn’t make a sound. He was just far away enough not to touch her, almost in silent askance of whether she wanted space. She did. And she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to talk almost as much as she didn’t want to write the eulogy. She wanted to be able to push down the sorrow and the rage until they just dissolved and she was as happy as she had been just a day earlier. Yesterday, she may have even been hopeful. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt hopeful about her family. But, now, she had to stop herself from reaching for a cigarette yet again. And she felt herself wanting a drink. A drink stronger than champagne at a book launch. And then the words started flowing before she could overthink them, before she could lock them away in her heart forever.

She swallowed thickly, looking down into her lap at her nail-bitten hands. “This is just like it was the last time.”

“Oh yeah?” he whispered, shifting a bit closer to her.

“Yeah,” she echoed, so quiet he almost couldn’t hear. She sniffed. “I mean, last time my dad was the devastated one instead of Fiona. But Adam still got pissed at Noah, and Noah only got more pissed because Adam was mad at him.”

Noah had only made it to town an hour before Ella left to go back to the Gilmore residence for the night, but he and Adam were at each other’s throats pretty much as soon as they saw each other. Upset that his Christmas vacation was being disrupted, Noah had insisted on staying at a motel instead of at the little blue house in which they had grown up. Adam wasn’t happy about it, accusing Noah of acting as though he was too good for them. In turn, Noah asked Adam why he wasn’t mad at Ella for staying with Lorelai. Adam had shot back immediately, saying Noah had abandoned the entire family the minute he could, while Ella stayed behind. At that point, Ella knew there was no way to diffuse the situation. She’d only offered to walk back with Noah to the motel, leaving Adam to sleep in his old room. Luckily, Fiona’s sister was already in town for the holiday. So, it didn’t wholly fall to any of the three of them to console her. 

Jess and Luke had both offered to go over to the house with her after helping with the arrangements, but she’d insisted on meeting her brothers there alone. The surreality of the moment didn’t dawn on her until she saw Adam’s teary eyes and Noah’s flushed face. It was like she had stepped into the past. She’d come back to the Gilmore house to find Jess sitting in the living room, halfway through the Russian novel he’d brought with. In the face of his questions, she’d only given him the liner notes and then fallen mostly silent for the rest of the evening.

“And Lorelai and Luke won’t let me brush my teeth without asking me if I need anything,” Ella continued, with a scoff in her words. “And, I love them. I do. And I’m so fucking grateful that it hurts. But, I’m fine. I’m totally fucking fine.”

“So I’ve heard,” he quipped.

“You’re hilarious.”

“I’ve heard that, too,” he said.

She laughed breathily, lifting her head to look up at the sky. “Shut up.”

“Will do.”

Then, after a moment: “I just wish...I wish it wasn’t like this. I mean, he was a shitty dad. But he was still my dad.”

He watched as she chose her words, carefully. Her voice had more emotion than he’d heard all day. Bringing his arm around her shoulders, he hoped to lessen the trembling of her hands just a little. She leaned into him, letting herself feel his warmth but fighting the wateriness in her voice. Of all the things she didn’t want to do, crying was at the top of the list.

“And now...I don’t have parents. I don’t even have a dad who hates me and never calls,” she continued.

“He didn’t hate you,” Jess interjected.

She shook her head. “Yeah, he did, Jess. He fucking hated me. Because I looked like my mom and I didn’t like Fiona and I wouldn’t quit talking back at the dinner table. But it doesn’t bother me. I hated him most of the time, too.”

He hummed in response, listening. 

Her face crumpled for only a moment. But, again, she regained her composure. A couple silent tears threatened to slip over. “But at least I had someone to hate, y’know? Now, it’s just...no one.”

She took in a shaky breath, and Jess began to rub circles over her back. He recognized that her shivering was no longer due to the cold but from the sobs she wouldn’t let loose. Ella’s stomach did a flip, as she clenched her hands into fists. But she just couldn’t hold it in any longer. She let a single wimper pass her lips. And then, the levee broke. She put her head in her hands and finally began to weep, cries from deep within her escaping at last. 

“I just...I don’t have p-parents anymore,” she spoke through sobs, trying to get her voice under control but failing miserably. “I’m not anyone’s daughter anymore. I don’t belong to anyone anymore.”

Jess shut his eyes for a moment, feeling a crack in his heart as he heard her anguish. But a part of him was relieved she was finally letting it out. He knew not all of her tears were for her father, but for her mother as well. He’d never seen her cry so hard before, so hard she couldn’t catch her breath and she was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. She stopped being able to talk after a while, only crying, folding in on herself. 

“I...I don’t...belong to  _ anyone _ anymore,” she repeated.

Gnawing on his bottom lip again, Jess smoothed an affectionate hand over her hair. He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. Though he couldn’t see her face, Ella felt her cheeks heat up at his seeing her sob so openly. Jess spoke in a clear, strong tone. 

“Listen, Eleanor, I know it feels like you’re alone without them, but that’s not true, okay?” he said.

She let out a tearful scoff.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m serious,” Jess continued, placing a hand on her damp cheek and turning her face gently so she would look at him. 

She wanted to avoid his eyes, embarrassed, but simply couldn’t bring herself to look anywhere else. The sight of him almost made her physically relax. 

An earnest crease stood out between his eyebrows when he spoke again. “You belong to me, and I belong to you. That’s how it’s always been, hasn’t it?”

She stared at him for a moment, stunned at his words, as tears kept rolling steadily down her cheeks. But then, her lip began to quiver and she closed her eyes. Jess was worried she was about to get angry again. But instead, she slumped weakly against him. He could feel her tears begin to wet the neckline of his t-shirt as she rested her head on his chest. Breathing out long and slow, Jess wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t know whether his words had helped, but he was doubtful. No amount of talking was going to make her feel any better. He couldn’t crack a joke or start a playful argument or do a magic trick. He could only be there. He simply sat and held her against the wind. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	40. This Ernest Hemingway Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella struggles in the wake of her father's death.

“If you don’t shut up about this bar...” Jess warned, shooting daggers at Chris over the top of his book. 

It was a slow day, and the three of them sat in the common area of Truncheon. Jess read his Sylvia Plath novel as he sat atop the welcome table in the front of the store. Chris was on a rant about why they should buy up the vacant space down the road and open a bar, while Matthew rolled his eyes. Snow fell in thick blankets, the coldest of the winter so far. Jess had opted to drive to work, rather than trudge through the crunchy, icy layer caking the sidewalks. The storm had blown in the night before as a bit of a surprise, leaving the city little time to salt the roads. The lack of customers at the book press was no shock. The large, ornate clock ticked slowly over the door. Only a few more minutes, and it would be time to close up for the day. Jess was glad; he’d be home to Ella soon enough. No matter how much she insisted she was fine, he couldn’t help feeling antsy when he’d left her home alone in the morning. His bottom lip was beginning to feel chapped from how much he had been gnawing on it.

Chris sighed heavily, throwing his hands up in exasperation. He was wearing a maroon cardigan over a pullover sweater, and Jess wondered how he wasn’t suffocating underneath all the wool. Chris took another sip of his disgusting chai latte before he continued. 

“But it wouldn’t be just  _ any _ bar! It would be  _ Cedar Bar Redux _ !” he exclaimed.

Matthew rolled his eyes, not bothering to look up from the inventory sheet he was reviewing. “Just saying the name over and over isn’t gonna convince us.”

“Listen, we’ve already got this Ernest Hemingway thing going here,” Chris said emphatically, gesturing to the room around them. “Now, we can have a Charlie Parker thing down the road. We’ll play only jazz music there, and only serve drinks with whiskey. It’ll be super classy. Super hip.”

“Please don’t ever say ‘hip’ again,” Jess deadpanned, his eyes back on his reading. 

Chris grinned confidently. “One day you’ll stop and think, ‘Wow, Chris has been a genius all along. Why did I ever doubt him?’”

Jess scoffed doubtfully.

“Sure, man,” Matthew said with a mocking nod.

“Hey, you’ll see, guys. Just you wait,” Chris said, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting at their dismissal of his idea. “If Ella was here, she’d agree with me.”

Shaking his head a bit, Jess snorted a laugh. “No, she wouldn’t.”

“I think she’s just pretentious enough to get behind it,” Chris argued, shrugging flippantly.

“Actually, I think she’s just pretentious enough to call you out for being a poser,” Matthew countered, his voice dejected as ever as he continued scouring the inventory sheets for any mistakes he might have made on them earlier in the day.

Chris narrowed his eyes at Matthew, getting ready to rebut. However, Jess spoke up first. He rose from his seat, stuffing the Plath book in the back pocket of his jeans and going to grab his coat and scarf. 

“Speaking of Eleanor,” he said, “I’m going home. It’s closing time, boys. Have fun with the marketing pitch, Matthew.”

“Thanks, Jess,” Matthew replied sarcastically, still not looking up. On inventory day, he was basically a robot, glued to his paperwork. Not like Jess could blame Matthew, though, considering Jess would have run the business into the ground during the first week had Matthew not been there to deal with the numbers. 

“What do you mean ‘speaking of Ella’?” Chris asked, his interest piqued. 

She hadn’t been around much recently, and he missed her, despite their occasional bickering. It had been over a month since her father died, and she had hardly let them know how she was doing once she got back. He could count on one hand the number of times they’d seen her. It wasn’t as though he didn’t understand; she could take as much time as he needed. But Jess wasn’t exactly helping to ease his (and Matthew’s) concern, offering little more than an assurance that she was fine and just needed time for herself. It was hard for Chris to imagine Ella coping by isolation, but he had never known her in tragedy. 

Jess shrugged on his coat, and began tying his scarf around his neck. “She stayed home sick today. I wanna make sure she at least eats dinner,” he explained shortly. They were all familiar with Ella’s bad habit of skipping, or forgetting, meals when she was stressed or upset.

“She okay?” Chris asked. 

Finally, Matthew looked up from his sheet, patiently awaiting an answer. Chis wasn’t the only one who had noticed Ella’s recent absence. She had quite a presence, after all. He and Mabel were beginning to worry. Leo, too.

Jess shrugged, evasive. “Yeah. She’s fine. Just a winter bug or something.”

Chris nodded skeptically. “Okay.” 

“Tell her we hope she feels better,” Matthew cut in diplomatically, hoping Chris got the hint that he should let sleeping dogs lie.

“Just call me a carrier pigeon,” Jess quipped, smiling thinly, before he excited the shop into the frigid evening air. 

. . .

Eyelids heavy, Ella focused on her breathing. The falling snow twinkled in the soft light of the cloudy evening, and she watched it. Flakes floated down haphazardly, sometimes tossed along the wind. Watching it made her feel mindless, but almost in a good way, as she laid on her side. The pain in her head had numbed, though an ache still throbbed dully in her skull. She was just too tired. The kind of fatigue which comes with a fever, though she knew she didn’t have one. She just needed to sleep. Sleep and sleep, she told herself, until the pain went away. After a good rest, she hoped, she would awake renewed and inspired. Her sketchbook sat closed on her nightstand, not used since the night before her father died, the night of Jess’s publishing party.

In her worst moments, that night came back to her in flashes. Not because it was bad, but because she had been just so happy. Tipsy and in love and hopeful. The naivety almost made her want to laugh out loud. How could she possibly have thought she would have the chance to patch things up with her father? Life didn’t work that way. It never did. She didn’t know when she had lost sight of her realist views, but she was reminded why they were important. Always planning for the worst meant no disappointments and no ugly surprises. She drifted in and out of vague dreams, almost unsure of when and if she was awake. She felt sweaty and stale beneath the blue quilt, but she still snuggled into it deeper. It made her feel safe in some innocent, childish way she wished she could hold onto. She knew when she got up again, she would feel cold. And she would have to continue on as normal with a new, unwelcome tightness in her chest. 

At the sound of the doorknob to the bedroom turning, she shut her eyes completely. She pretended to be asleep, breathing deeply and making her expression go slack, as Jess came in. Better to have him believe she was actually resting, rather than staring off into the middle distance feeling sorry for herself. Ella didn’t know quite what time it was, but she thought he was early, judging by the light outside. She knew he was worried about her; she could see it, even if he never said it out loud. But she was just so tired. She simply lacked the energy to reassure him, or to reassure herself. She could hear him quietly take off his shoes, his watch. 

Then, he exited the room again. She heard him put on an album by The Cure at a low volume. It made her want to smile, almost. The apartment felt better when he was in it. She felt less claustrophobic. Maybe since he was finally there, she would actually get some sleep. But sleep never came, and she knew why. She’d been lying in bed all day, in a zombie-like state. In the two weeks since returning to work, she’d come home every day exhausted. And, worse yet, angry. Not in a yelling and punching the walls kind of way, though. Instead, she would cry hot, frustrated tears at the smallest mistake in her work. She would feel the urge to go smoke or drink, though she hadn’t given in. She felt like she was crawling out of her skin, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She could only sit back and watch as she struggled tiredly through her lectures and bit her nails ragged.

But the worst part was not the anger. The worst part was the inability to truly feel it. She knew she was angry, and she knew why, but she couldn’t get it to sink it. She couldn’t work through it or make it better, she could only feel it in the moment. When it passed, she would go back to her sleepy, sluggish state. And the storm of emotion would sit dormant in her belly. She tried to think about her father, and tried to cry for him. She couldn’t. She could only wait for the random bursts of emotion at meaningless moments. When she thought of her father’s death, or even her mother’s, it was like she could feel the key turning in the lock on her heart, and the switch flipping off. Not since the night Jess had held her on the Gilmore porch had she been able to shed a tear about any of it.

Staying home had been both a necessity because of the migraine she’d woken up with, and an attempt to wake herself up. Maybe if she could sleep off the constant fatigue she had been feeling, she could sleep off the hazy fog in her brain as well. But, as the day began to come to a close, she could only lie in her bed feeling defeated. In a way which was familiar, but still so new. When her mother had died, it had been such a shock. It had been more cut and dry. She had loved her mother, and her mother died. But her father was a different story. And he had been her only parent left. 

After a few minutes, the bedroom door creaked open again, and she heard Jess’s soft footfalls on the carpet. The other side of the bed dipped down as he sat, and placed a gentle hand on her back, beginning to rub circles there. 

“Elle?” he asked. “Hey, honey, wake up.”

Ella took a deep breath in, feigning slight surprise as she opened her eyes and rolled over, away from the window to face Jess. He had a small smirk on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes as he looked down at her. With a light touch, he brushed the stray strands of hair away from her forehead. 

“Hey,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse and groggy.

“Hi,” he replied. 

She was pale and exhausted. It was as though her face had drained of all color the moment her father had died, and it had yet to come back. He couldn’t make her blush like he used to. Some sort of elemental lightness had left her, one which he hadn’t noticed she had until it was gone. And he was more or less at a loss about what to do. She was going about her day, going through the motions, but she was still somewhere far off in her mind. Unable to deal with anything that didn’t lack all emotion. He was beginning to wonder if she was ever going to snap out of it, or if a part of her was missing that could never be replaced. But, he was trying for her. He was taking care of her in a way he had never gotten a chance to before. Not from sickness, but from sadness. She had always been the one to patch him up emotionally, when things fell through with his father or he had a panic attack or he couldn’t get the dark clouds to lift from above his head. She was not exactly a ray of sunshine, but she wasn’t one to wallow either. She was an expert at getting through, attacking life the way it attacked her, picking herself back up. This time, he thought, maybe she just needed a hand. 

“How’s your head?” he asked quietly, his thumb caressing her skin. 

In the morning, she’d barely been able to open her eyes, her migraine was so bad. He wasn’t surprised though. She hadn’t taken a day off since going back to work. Everything was bound to catch up with her eventually. She was trying to hold it all back again, but he didn’t know why. Maybe because she’d had a bit of time; she wasn’t in shock anymore. She had more control over her emotions, maybe too much. 

She shrugged. “A little better.”

“Good,” he said, leaning down and pressing a long kiss on her forehead. 

When he pulled away, Ella took in a deep breath through her nose. She let her muscles release tension she didn’t know they’d been holding. She was glad he was home, even if she was embarrassed at his seeing her lying around. 

“I made some green tea. You wanna watch a Stephen King movie with dinner? Or do your eyes still hurt?” he asked. 

She felt her stomach do a flip. She didn’t deserve him. And his tenderness made her feel squirmy, like at some point he would realize how lazy she was being, how pathetic. Even one day off of work was making her feel so useless. She cleared her throat, averting her eyes from him. 

“I’m actually not that hungry,” she said sheepishly. She hadn’t eaten all day, but she just couldn’t bring herself to want anything. 

Jess sighed. “Elle-”

“No, I know,” she cut him off. “I promise I’ll eat later, really. Just not right now.”

Biting at his lip, Jess seemed lost in thought for a moment before he finally nodded. “Okay.”

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. “Did you finish that Sylvia Plath?”

“Not yet,” he said.

“You wanna come lay down and read me what you have left, James Dean?” she asked, tone lighter than it had been.

He let a smile ghost over his lips. “Always, Daria.”

Swallowing thickly, Ella muttered a thanks to him as he left the room again. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, so blank and dull white. Like a canvas she wanted to paint. But just thinking of the empty pages in her sketchbook made dread rise up in her throat. She shook the thought away as Jess came back into the room with two mugs of tea and a book under his arm. As they drank their tea, he told her about his day, about Chris and Matthew, how slow it had been. She laughed at the right moments, nodded at the right moments, smiled when she should have. But her heart wasn’t in it. She didn’t add anything, she barely even looked at him. He wanted to ask her what was wrong, and he almost did. But she looked so tired. He decided to wait until at least the morning. She needed rest more than she needed an interrogation, he figured. When they were done, cups on nightstands, he laid down next to her, warm under the covers as the snow kept falling in sheets outside, the light of the streetlamps making the flakes sparkle. The approaching darkness was almost gloomy, though, and he wasn’t particularly sure why. She laid her head on his chest, as she often did when he read to her. She liked to hear the vibrations of his words against her ear. 

As he began at the page where he stopped, she felt warmer. His voice and the feeling of his body against her made it easier to breathe, easier to get her mind to shut up for a moment. But it lasted not for long, as a quiet thought whispered in the back of her mind. Then, it was louder and louder, until it became a shout, a scream. Someday, she would end up like her father, like Fiona. Losing the person you loved most in the world destroyed you. Ella didn’t know why, but all of a sudden she felt certain she would lose Jess. He would die, and he would die suddenly. As soon as she let her guard down again, she would lose him. She would lose the person she belonged to, the person who belonged to her. 

The love she felt for Jess was unlike what she had felt for anyone else before, and some part of her knew she would never feel that love for anyone else again. And she felt like she understood her father better than she ever had before. He’d lost her mother in the middle of the night; the person he belonged to. Ella had been able to move on, but she thought that maybe her father’s life had been over the moment her mother died. And it would happen to her, unless she did something about it. The thought was so jarring and terrifying, for a moment, she felt like her throat was closing up. But she tried to handle the pit in her stomach as it formed and sat coldly in her core. 

Jess was so sweet to her, always had been. Even when he was an angry tenager who was lost and acted like he didn’t need anybody. When she’d thought she couldn’t love anyone. He was smart and thoughtful and he knew her better than anyone else ever had. She could smell his familiar scent of pine and must, which had never worn off even long after he moved out of Luke’s. She listened to his voice lilt over the words of a book she owned, which she’d given him in high school. He was rereading the copy which contained their notes to each other, back when they were still falling in love without knowing it. A glance up at his face, and tears stung her eyes. Jess with his kind brown eyes and the dark shadow on his jaw. Jess with the faded scar on his left palm, which she’d watched get stitched up. Jess with the strong arms that held her in the ocean in California. The person she’d been in love with since she was sixteen. He was beautiful, in every sense of the word. A deep, awful regret filled her. She’d let herself fall so completely in love with him. She never should have. What was she going to do when he was gone? 

Before she could stop herself, she began to cry silently. Jess furrowed his brows, feeling her tears wet his t-shirt. It was Plath, after all. A pretty sad novel, but he’d never known her to cry at a book. Or at much of anything, for that matter. He stopped reading immediately, lowering the book and bringing one hand to touch her freckled arm gingerly.

“What’s wrong?”

She sniffed and cleared her throat, wiping beneath her eyes. “Nothing, Jess. Just keep reading.”

“Eleanor-”

“Jess, please just keep reading,” she said, voice shaking and broken. 

His breath caught in his throat, the words dying before he spoke them. She sounded helpless. He couldn't ignore her pleas, no matter how much he wanted to. Not when she sounded like that. He kept reading.

. . .

Gnawing on her nails, Ella sat alone in the cold morning light. The world outside was sparkling with snow in the sunlight. But soon, the grime city would corrupt it. The soft mountains of white would grow dull and gray, caked on the side of the road. She could only think about the melty gray slush as she looked outside, at the beauty the storm the day before had left in its wake. Her hands were slightly shaky, her elbows on her knees. She couldn’t remember the last time she had woken up so early, unable to fight wakefulness anymore as she packed a bag in the early darkness. The day had since brightened, from a deep blue to a warm orange and then finally, a bright yellow. But Ella still couldn’t bring herself to wake Jess up. 

Instead, she waited. And she didn’t have to wait as long as she thought she would have. Jess emerged from the bedroom in his pajamas, rubbing tiredly at his eyes, at around half past six. His brows were furrowed at her empty spot in bed before he even saw her in the living room, sitting on the couch fully dressed with a packed suitcase on the floor next to her.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” he asked, stopping in his tracks in surprise. 

Ella ran an anxious hand through her hair before she looked up to meet his eyes. “I think...I think we should take a break for a little while.”

“ _ What _ ?” he said incredulously.

She sighed through her nose, looking down into her lap. “Jess, I just don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be together right now.”

“Eleanor,  _ what _ are you talking about?” he continued, as though he simply couldn’t get her words to make sense in his head. 

Again, she sighed in frustration. Without thinking about it, she rose and began to pace. Jess watched her with a worried gaze. She wasn’t behaving like herself at all, and just looking at her suitcase packed and ready to go made him feel sick to his stomach. 

“Look, Jess, I just...I think we need to take a step back from each other for a while. Get to know ourselves when we’re not with each other, you know?” she said, her excuse flimsy and her voice uncertain. But she told herself this would be the hard part. Rip the bandaid off and leave, to get rid of the constant dread inside her. Without Jess, without anyone, it would simply be safer. More practical. And hadn’t being practical always worked out for her in the end?

Jess shook his head slowly, trying to get a handle on his thoughts. “That’s bullshit. We’ve already been apart from each other, and you and I both know that doesn’t work. What’s this actually about?”

“I just need a break, okay? I’ll call in sick again today. Fiona said last time I called that she needs me to clean out my room before she puts the house on the market. I’ll get back to town on Sunday,” Ella said, speaking quickly, flatly, wanting to get the words out and get them over with. 

“And on Sunday?” Jess asked, eyebrows raised askance.

After a moment of tense silence, Ella could only shrug. “I don’t know. On Sunday...we regroup. Think about things.”

Jess ran a hand over his mouth. “You can’t be serious, Eleanor.”

“I am,” she replied simply.

“You honestly wanna break up? After everything?” he asked, sounding as though he still hadn’t quite been able to process what was going on. He’d known something was wrong, of course. Especially after she’d wept her way through his reading of Sylvia Plath, eventually falling asleep with her face still pressed against his t-shirt, her cheeks damp. 

“Not break up!” Ella said immediately, raising her voice. “Not...forever.”

Again, Jess shook his head, voice matching her volume when he spoke again. “This isn’t like you, Eleanor. You don’t just run away like this. That’s my move, and it’s a fucking bad one. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing. I told you, Jess, I just-”

“Need a break?” Jess interrupted finishing for her, with hints of both anger and fear in his tone.

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. He looked so crestfallen, so quickly. She wanted to throw her arms around him, cry into his shoulder, let out the tears she hadn’t been able to release. To tell him what she’d been feeling, the constant pain rivaled only by the strange, unexplainable numbness. But she bit at the inside of her cheek, hard, to snap herself out of it. She had made her choice. And she had to stick to it.

“Yes.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, taking a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “Please. Just tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, we can figure it out.”

“Nothing’s going on,” she repeated, finding it hard to keep her voice from cracking.

“Is this about your dad?” he asked. They’d been dancing around the conversation for weeks, as he watched her retreat within herself. Finally, he couldn’t ignore it, couldn’t tell himself she needed space, couldn’t just tell himself she was grieving the way she needed to. The truth was, she wasn’t grieving. Not really. 

She heaved a sigh. “Jesus, Jess. It’s not about my dad, okay? Can’t I just need a break from us? From all this?” she asked as she gestured around them to the apartment, to the life they had started to build together. She sounded angry. But anger was better than nothing. Jess kept going.

“No, not when you started crying last night and wouldn’t tell me why, not when you keep forgetting to eat, not when you’re tired all day, even after like twelve hours of sleep, not when you don’t even want to draw anymore,” he said, in vehement disagreement. “I can talk to my therapist and see if she knows someone who’s covered by the University insurance. I bet she knows a lot of grief counselors.”

“Jess, stop,” she said, refusing to make eye contact with him as she crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Trust me, Eleanor,” he continued, almost pleading. “You’ll feel so much better if you talk to someone about all this. About your dad, your mom, your brothers, Fiona. I’m sure you could think of a few choice words to say about me too.”

She shook her head at his attempt to joke. She wasn’t having it. More tears stung her eyes, and they only made her angrier. She was so sick of needing to cry and not being able to, of dealing with her family’s bullshit, of everything. Of being afraid of everything.

“Van Gogh must have had hundreds of hours of therapy in his life, and you’ve seen his paintings. I really think it’s all gonna be okay if-”

“Stop it, Jess!” she shouted, reaching for a necklace she hadn’t worn in years. An old tic Jess hadn’t seen since high school. Seeing her fingers go instinctively to grab at a small key pendant made his heart ache in such a deep way, so fundamentally, he almost wanted to cry. “Stop being so fucking nice to me! Stop trying to take care of me! Every time I tell you that, you never fucking listen!”

“Elle, what-” he began, eyes widening at her outburst. But she was on a roll, and hardly noticed when he spoke.

“I mean, it’s like you can’t even hear me sometimes,” she continued, pacing furiously and gesturing around again with her hands. For a moment, she was worried the neighbors would complain about her yelling at such an early hour. But she forgot about them as the emotions bubbled up in her throat, words spilling from her mouth. “You just keep doing whatever the fuck you want! Reminding me to eat, and reading to me, and kissing me, telling me you love me, and I just can’t fucking do it anymore, Jess! Not when you’re just gonna be gone someday!”

“Eleanor, I’m not-”

“Yes, you are!” she interrupted, finally facing him again. A fire burned in her eyes, cold and green and devastated. “Whether you like it or not, you’re gonna have a heart attack or crash your shitty fucking car or get struck by lightning! And I can’t keep doing this when one day it’s all just gonna be gone! It hurts bad enough calling it quits right now!”

Taken aback, Jess sighed. His face softened. He wanted to take a step forward, to go to her, but he fought the urge. Instead, he spoke in a calm, soothing voice. “Honey-”

She let out an infuriated scoff at the affectionate nickname.   
  


“I know you’re scared,” he began, but she cut him off again.

“No, you don’t!” she countered, voice more venomous by the second. “You don’t know! Jess, I know your parents aren’t exactly perfect, but guess what? They’re alive. You didn’t wake up one day and figure out they were fucking dead! You can still talk to them whenever you want. You didn’t have to watch-”

She paused as her voice broke, clearing her throat before she went on. “You didn’t have to watch your dad fucking destroy himself because he missed your mom so much. And you don’t have to watch your stepmom go through the same thing!”   
  


“Eleanor-”

“Don’t ‘Eleanor’ me, Jess! Please don’t. I...I love you. But I just...I just wish I didn’t.”

She was crying now, big, childish tears rolling down her skin as she spoke. Jess felt his heart drop into his stomach. Of course, he’d known she was in pain. Her father had died, after all. But he didn’t know she was scared. He didn’t know she was absolutely terrified. Not when she’d always seemed fearless. Before he could stop himself, he went over and embraced her. His hug was tight and warm, one arm encircling around her waist and one hand in her hair, cradling her head. And for a second, she relaxed into him. She let his touch soothe her and heal her. But then she snapped out of it again. Back to reality. She remembered how badly it hurt when she lost good things. She disentangled herself from his hold.

“No,” she said. “Please...don’t touch me right now.”

Her words sounded so defeated and final that for the first time it occurred to Jess she might actually be serious about leaving, about breaking up. The thought was so heartbreaking, a lump instantly formed in his throat. 

“Just wait a second, Elle. Can we...can we talk about this more? Please?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper. His own eyes began to grow shiny.

She shook her head, grabbing her suitcase and making for the coat rack. “I have to go, Jess.”

“But you don’t! You can stay and we can figure this out!” Jess said, following her to the doorway.

Her face was stoic and guarded again as she donned her coat, hat, and scarf. “I need...I just need to be alone. I’ll be back on Sunday.”

He ran a hand over his mouth again. “Do you  _ promise  _ you’ll be back on Sunday?”

“Yes,” she said after a moment, opening the door. She stood there awkwardly for a moment, unsure whether to say goodbye, if it was a goodbye at all. 

Jess sighed heavily, relenting to her leaving, as begrudgingly as possible. “Just…please be safe driving up there.”

“I will.”

“I love you,” he said, not being able to help himself.

A tiny, sad smile passed over her lips. “Right back at ya.”

On any other morning, he would have laughed at her response, a joke at the expense of his own shyness. But instead he stood motionless as she went out the door and shut it softly behind her. He was unsure if she would ever truly come back, if she was already gone, if she had been for weeks. Jess was crying before she made it out the front door of the building.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	41. A Truman Show Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella goes to the little blue house for the last time.

Wringing her hands to keep herself from biting her nails off, Ella trudged up the front steps to Luke’s. Luckily, her old parking spot was open. It made her remember evenings when she’d come straight from visiting her aunt in New Britain. How safe the diner had always made her feel. A refuge from school and home alike. Her heart ached, traveling back into the past for just a moment. She couldn’t think of one second since her father’s death that she’d felt the least bit secure. Hopefully, Luke’s would help at least a little. But a strange, uneasy surreality flooded her as she entered the diner’s warmth. Life had gone on without her there. She noticed small changes to the place she had spent most of her youth in, slight differences in paint color, placement of certain mugs on the back display shelf, even new menus. At least the ‘No Cellphones’ sign hung behind the counter, as it always had. Ella doubted it would come down until Luke was long dead. 

She didn’t take off her coat, and tried not to make eye contact with anyone for too long. Miss Patty was busy with her mid-morning tap class, Ella knew, and Babette wasn’t in sight at the diner either. Kirk must’ve been at work too. In fact, the diner was nearly empty, the transition between Friday breakfast and lunch creating a lull. She hopped up on a stool at the counter, right in front of the coffee machine. Luke was making a fresh pot, his back to her. He turned around once he had finished, coming to face her. For a moment, Ella felt a wave of relief at the sight of him. His baseball cap, his red flannel, his worn jeans. Luke hadn’t changed nearly at all over the course of her entire life. But then, an unwelcome thought about what she would do in the event of Luke’s death intruded her mind. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to think of anyone without picturing them six feet under. 

Luke’s eyes widened at the sight of her. “Hey, Ella, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she shrugged, fighting the urge to have any bit of emotion cross her features. “I just came to get my stuff out of the old house. Fiona’s putting it on the market pretty soon. At least, she says she is.”

“Oh,” he said, nodding. “You want something?”

Ella shook her head after a moment of thought. “No, thanks. I just wanted to stop in, since I was on my way by.”

“Alright,” Luke said, averting his eyes.

“What?” she asked, eyebrows raised in suspicion.

Luke sighed. “Jess called me this morning.”

Swallowing dryly, Ella breathed in a deep breath. “Did he?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s not coming, is he?” she asked. At some point on the drive, it had occurred to her that he might follow her to Stars Hollow, continue the conversation. But just the idea of seeing the hurt in his eyes was enough to make her stomach do a flip. She wasn’t ready to keep talking. Maybe she never would be.

A joyless smirk appeared on Luke’s face. “He told me you might ask that. No. He’s still in Philly. He just wanted to let me know you were coming, make sure you got to town safe.”

“Okay,” she said, again forcing down all her feelings, her face solemn. “I take it that’s not all he told you?”

“No,” he said, as Ella raked an anxious hand through her hair and once again tried to keep her nails away from her teeth. After a shot pause, Luke continued, trying to catch her eyes once more: “Listen, kid, it’s all gonna be okay.”

“That’s convincing,” she said with a humorless chuckle.

Again, he sighed, weary and frustrated. He readjusted his cap on his head. Eyes doing a quick scan of the diner, he found the other customers, all at tables, not listening, enjoying their food. “I know you don’t scare easy. And I know how angry being scared must make you.”

She rolled her eyes, and all of a sudden she looked just like a teenager to Luke. A teenager with no mother and not much of anything to go home to. No matter how annoyed she could make him, he cared about her more than he cared about himself. 

“Don’t listen if you don’t want to, but I’ve lived a lot longer than you, Ella,” he began, curmudgeonly as ever. “Believe me, I know what’s gonna be okay and what’s not gonna be okay. And you are gonna be okay.”

“Sure,” she said, dejected but trying her best to go along with his advice session.

Luke sighed again. “Look, my mom died when I was a kid too. And then, when my dad died, I went a little bit nuts too. I spent thousands of dollars I didn’t have to open this place up. But eventually, things felt normal again. And look at me now.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, mocking. “You’re the most well-adjusted person I know.”

“Shaddup,” he scolded her affectionately. “I have no doubt in my mind that this will pass, and you’ll go back to your life just fine.”

She only nodded half-heartedly.

“Ella?”

“Yeah?” she asked, finally venturing to face him fully again.

“Jess loves you. You’re the thing he loves most in the world, as far as I can tell,” Luke said.

She swallowed harshly, looking away from the momentary eye contact she had held with him. For a second, she was worried she would cry, but she bit the inside of her cheek and focused on the pain instead of the sadness. “I know, Luke.”

At that, he decided to let it go. He’d never been the best with emotional, soul-searching chats in the first place. He smiled a bit at her in a way he hoped was reassuring. “You wanna come over for dinner tonight? Lorelai’s gonna bite my head off if I got to see you and she didn’t.”

“No, I can’t just show up like this and then eat your food,” she said immediately.

Luke only scoffed, watching as a customer began approaching the register. “You know you’re not getting out of it, kid. Dinner’s at six.”

Before she could reply, he went over to ring up some townie Ella could barely recognize. She wanted to protest further, but knew she didn’t have the energy for an argument with Luke. And, she had to admit, she couldn’t think of anything better than seeing Lorelai. For some reason, she had a deep, sorrowful longing for the Gilmore woman’s warm hugs and kooky way of approaching life, at just the mention of her name. 

“Fine,” she said, as Luke came back over to grab the coffee pot and do refills.

Luke gave an affirmative grunt in response. Apparently, the conversation was over, and neither Luke nor Ella were particularly upset about that. She slung her purse back over her shoulder, hugging her peacoat around her a bit tighter as she prepared to go outside. As she passed Luke on the way out, she stopped in her tracks for a moment.

“Hey Luke?” she said.

He looked up expectantly.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, voice sincere, though his face barely softened a bit. 

. . .

The sun would soon start to set. She looked out her old window, a view of tree branches and golden clouds. The sight made her remember the day Jess had taken her to the Met, showing up at her window. And other days, when he would climb in and her small room felt like the whole world, made special for just the two of them. Swallowing harshly, she sat down on the old carpet, back against the wall and one leg crossed over the other. On the right wall, she could still see the remnants of the last mural she’d painted through the fresh white color. The realtors hadn’t taken kindly to the artwork, Fiona had said, letting Ella in, showing her the room, and promptly leaving to go stay the night at her new apartment. She’d given Ella a kiss on the cheek before going. Ella had smiled, despite the lipstick stain she knew Fiona’s bright pink lips left. She was glad Fiona was getting away, wasn’t getting stuck. Not like Ella herself was. She focused on her breathing for a moment, and she could have sworn the room still had the faint scent of lavender candles. 

She’d carved out more time than necessary to pack everything up. When she’d first moved to Lane’s, she’d only left her closet full, and a few odds and ends in the attic. Clothes she would be donating, childhood drawings she would be throwing away. The photo album was the only thing she was surprised to find. She’d forgotten about it. Maybe simply because she’d wanted to forget about it. It was the only thing she hadn’t managed to fit in the three cardboard boxes which now sat in the corner of the otherwise empty room. All she had left to do was load everything in her car and drive to Lorelai and Luke’s for dinner. And she would never see the little blue house again. No matter how much she’d disliked living there, she couldn’t shake the small part of her which wasn’t ready to lose it, let it go. Even if she’d known for a while the house would soon be gone. 

Before she could think better of it, she grabbed the photo album from where it sat next to the boxes. She could have squeezed it in if she tried, but she didn’t want to risk breaking it. It was of her, her life. Her family. Her mother had made one for each of her children, adding to them all the time. A project left unfinished after her death. They’d gone away with the rest of her belongings. Had she not gone up into the attic, Ella probably would have assumed it had been thrown out years earlier. But there it was.

She ran the pad of her finger over the words on the front cover gingerly.  _ Eleanor Mary Stevens _ . Heaving a deep sigh, she opened it and flicked through her early years. Her mother on the day Ella was born, long blonde hair and hazel eyes, a tiny baby in her arms. Another one, with her grandmother holding her as a baby. Ella felt for a chain around her neck without noticing. She flipped through a few more pages, and had to stop when she came across the photo of the whole family on her thirteenth birthday. The second to last before her mother’s death. They were all crowded around the small kitchen, the walls behind them painted a distinctive shade of peach. Ella’s smile was wide and naive, a big cake with candles about to be blown out sitting before her on the round table. The table where she and her father had sat for weeks, drinking, after her mother was gone. Her mother had blown up balloons, decorated a birthday banner, invited Julie and her family down for a small little surprise party. Thirteen was an important one, her mother had said. A whole new phase. It was Julie who had taken the picture, urging the five of them to squish together and fit in the frame. Ella’s mother looked arguably happier than Ella did. She’d always gone all out for birthdays. 

But Ella’s mind didn’t take long to wander to the hours following the picture being taken. The dinner when her father had raised his voice over something she didn’t even remember. Ella had been feeling brave and confident, newly a teenager and high off the fanfare. She’d tried to interject, calm her father down, restore the light mood. She should have known better. He didn’t hit her, didn’t lay a hand on her. He’d yelled instead. Ella could tell, though, that he’d wanted to smack her. She could recognize how red his face got, and the particular way he spit out his words through gritted teeth. He was just so angry, for no reason at all. She hadn’t let him see her cry, of course. Later, after they’d all slunk to their rooms for the night in awkward, pained silence, she’d wept into her pillow. She never knew whether her mother had heard her, or whether she’d just sensed something was wrong. Ella could still hear the soft knock on her door, her mother’s gentle voice as she walked in.

. . .

_ “Hey, apple pie,” Sophia began, shuffling into Ella’s room and closing the door silently, carefully.  _

_ Turning on her side, facing away from her mother, Ella rolled her eyes at the nickname. She’d been stuck with it for years, since she was a little girl and was obsessed with helping her mother make holiday pies. She couldn’t help but be embarrassed by it, even when it was just the two of them. It made her feel like a kid in overalls, not a girl who was just about to start eighth grade. She was practically in high school, after all.  _

_ Frowning at her daughter’s silence, Sophia came over and sat on the edge of the bed. She stroked Ella’s messy hair. Ella tried to hide her sniffling, but was unsuccessful. Her mother was the only person she ever really openly cried in front of.  _

_ “Will you look at me?” Sophia asked, feigning a happy smile. They both knew the day hadn’t been exactly what either of them wanted.  _

_ Though she huffed in frustration, Ella sat up against the wall behind her bed, hugging her knees to her chest and wiping at her cheeks and nose. Sophia’s face softened at the sight of Ella, and she gave Ella’s knee a squeeze. Despite Sophia’s valiant attempts to get her to talk, Ella didn’t meet her eyes and remained quiet. She was struggling to stop her watery hiccups.  _

_ “You know he doesn’t mean it,” Sophia said. _

_ Ella shook her head. Her voice was raw and unstable when she spoke. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” _

_ “No, you didn’t,” Sophia agreed. _

_ “And it’s my birthday,” Ella continued, new tears beginning to roll down her cheeks.  _

_ “I know,” Sophia sighed, willing herself to remain positive. It wasn’t the first time she and Ella had had this talk. “Look, Ella, he’s had a hard life. Sometimes...he just doesn’t know how to handle it when he feels angry. He loves you so,  _ so _ much.” _

_ Scoffing harshly, Ella finally turned to face her mother. “Sometimes it’s kinda hard to tell.” _

_ Looking down, Sophia nodded. “He’s working on it. Baby steps, okay? I’m sorry about today. Tomorrow, I know he’ll make it up to you.” _

_ “Okay,” Ella said tiredly. Weeping had made her feel exhausted. She just wanted to go to sleep.  _

_ “Hey, I’m serious. Perk up,” Sophia said sternly, though Ella knew she was just teasing. _

_ Ella gave a weak smile. “Okay. I’m just tired. You’re right. Today wasn’t so bad, anyway.” _

_ Sophia’s smile grew. “Yeah. It was nice to see Aunt Julie, right?” _

_ Tugging anxiously at the ends of her hair, Ella nodded. “Yeah. Good surprise. Thanks for the party, mom.” _

_ “Sure thing, apple pie,” Sophia said. She kissed Ella good night and rose from the bed. Before she left, she gave Ella’s shoulder one last squeeze. She pointed to the candles alight on Ella’s desk. “Tomorrow will be better. I know it will.” _

_ Snorting a laugh, Ella let her smile become just a bit more genuine. She repeated the saying she had heard her mother utter about a thousand times as they gardened together. “Mmhm. Lavender is for luck.” _

_ “That’s right,” Sophia said with a chuckle, shooting Ella an affectionate wink. Then, she padded back out into the hall and shut the door behind her. _

. . .

Startling at the sharp ringing of her cell phone breaking her from her reverie, Ella gasped slightly. She snapped back to the present, shutting the photo album and placing it back atop the nearest box. She leaned back against the wall, frazzled, not bothering to look at the caller ID before answering. Breathing out slowly, she blinked back the shine from her eyes.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ella,” Mabel greeted her through the line.

“Oh, hi,” Ella said dumbly, not expecting her call. Not that they didn’t talk on the phone regularly, because they did, but they also usually saw each other frequently. A cold call was a bit out of the ordinary.

“Are you feeling any better?” Mabel asked, and Ella could hear her take a quick inhale. She was probably smoking. Usually, Ella would accompany Mabel on her smoke breaks when they were hanging out, so she wouldn’t have to stand out in the cold all alone, even if Ella had been resisting the habit with relative success since the night after her father died. “I just wanted to check in. Jess said you were still too sick to come to dinner tonight.”

She cleared her throat. Apparently Jess hadn’t let them in on whatever was going on. “Oh, yeah. Thanks. I’m okay. Just still on the mend, I guess. How are things over there?”

Biting the inside of her cheek, she listened as Mabel told her about the fight Chris and Matthew had gotten into over where to order takeout from. Leo had also gotten involved, apparently. Mabel laughed as she spoke, and Ella missed the sound. It was not the first time she had considered what she would be giving up if she and Jess broke up. Chris and Matthew were his business partners. She would be the one who was iced out. And she couldn’t blame any of them for it. But she was suddenly homesick not for Stars Hollow, but for Philadelphia. She missed hours spent discussing Tennesee Williams on Mabel’s couch, or playing Leo’s keyboard while he messed around with some new song and asked for her help with an accompaniment, or mocking Chris about his sweater vest obsession and receiving some witty jab in return, or debating with Matthew about the best way to achieve world peace when drunk and hopeful. Another wave of regret and sadness washed over her. She had found a new family, despite her best efforts not to. 

“Alright, I’m gonna head back inside. I’m freezing my ass off out here. Do you want me to bring you up and put you on speaker so you can say hi to the guys?” Mabel asked.

“Um, no, that’s okay. I’m probably just gonna head to bed. Will you…” she began, hesitating before she continued. “Will you tell Jess I said good night? I’ll probably be asleep when he gets back.”

She couldn’t remember the last time they had spent a night apart. And she couldn’t shake her worries about him, if he had a nightmare, if he had a panic attack. Would he call her? She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back in time to help him. Concern bubbled up in her throat, but she swallowed it down. At least he was with everyone at Truncheon, having takeout. Friday nights were takeout nights, after all. 

“Will do. I’ll talk to you soon, okay?” Mabel said.

Ella sighed out through her nose. “Yeah.”

“Okay, love you. Get better, please.”

Biting harder on her cheek, Ella tried to ignore the smile she could hear in Mabel’s voice. She could see exactly the expression Mabel had at that moment. 

“I’ll try,” Ella said.

. . .

Sipping her water while Lorelai drank her red wine, Ella felt her skin buzzing with nerves. Since the remodel, the Gilmore house looked completely different to Ella. The changes hadn’t been especially big, just some new wallpaper here, a fresh decoration there. But she missed the little things only she and the other people who had been in the right place at the right time could remember. There were no longer pencil marks in the guest room’s closet wall from when Rory and Ella were practicing their signatures. Dreaming of the days when they would be signing autographs, Rory a famous journalist and Ella a famous artist. She missed the reddish stain on the kitchen ceiling from when Lorelai had dropped a bottle of ketchup at just the right angle and the condiment had spewed up in a stream. They were there in her memory, but gone in her reality. Everything had changed, and she had hardly noticed until it was all different. It was too late. 

“So, Michel finally made the exterminator sign this contract he drew up, promising no mouse would ever be found on the premises again,” Lorelai said, finishing her saga of a mouse recently wreaking havoc at the Dragonfly.

Ella snorted halfheartedly. “Well, I hope for the exterminator’s sake it’s not legally binding.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already mysteriously lost it,” Lorelai said with a conspiratorial wink. 

Laughing along with her, Ella let her eyes linger on the red wine as Lorelai brought it to her lips. She didn’t want it, not really. But she knew how much better she would feel if she drank it, if she could get her thoughts to quiet down for just a little while. The thought made her grip the edge of the table momentarily, before it passed. She missed the feeling of Jess’s hand in hers, squeezing it, reassuring her. And then anger rose up inside her for missing him. Lorelai cleared her throat, breaking Ella from her daze.

“Oh, sorry,” Ella said, flushing with embarrassment. 

Lorelai’s brows furrowed in concern and she sighed, preparing to finally address the elephant in the room. They hadn’t really discussed anything serious over dinner, keeping the conversation light while they ate some chicken made by Luke. He’d gone to bed a few minutes earlier, the night darkening past nine. The next day saw early morning deliveries and he had no intention of being sleep-deprived for a Saturday shift. Besides, Lorelai had formed the game plan before Ella even came over, after Luke told her why Ella was in Stars Hollow in the first place. She’d known the girl long enough, and through enough, to have an inkling of how she dealt with things.

“Sweetie?” Lorelai said.

Ella hummed, tilting her head at Lorelai in askance.

“What’s been going on with you?” Lorelai asked earnestly, a sympathetic glint in her sparkling blue eyes.

Chewing on her bottom lip for a moment, Ella looked down into her water. Then, she looked back up with tears stinging her eyes. And her words came out in a husky, rough whisper. “I don’t know.”

Lorelai nodded. “That’s okay, Ella. But you can’t ignore this. I know you want to, but I just don’t think it’s gonna work this time.”

“Why not? It’s worked so well in the past,” Ella said with a sardonic laugh, sniffing and trying to blink back her tears. She willed herself not to cry in front of Lorelai. She would not be a woman in her mid-twenties crying over a boy with her friend’s mother. Not even if the boy was the love of her life.

“But has it?” Lorelai asked doubtfully.

Taking in a deep breath, Ella swallowed thickly. “I just...I don’t want to lose him.”

“If you break up with him, I’m pretty sure you’ll lose him, sweetie,” Lorelai said, her tone hushed with gravity.

“Well, obviously, I know, but…if I have to lose him, then at least it’ll be on my own terms,” Ella continued, feeling squirmy and embarrassed speaking to Lorelai so openly. She had confided in Lorelai in her teen years, but for so long Jess had been the only one to hear about the inner workings of her mind.

Lorelai nodded, thinking.

“I’m just...I’m so fucking mad,” Ella admitted, shaking her head. She scoffed at herself, at how childish her own words sounded. 

“Why?” Lorelai asked simply.

“Because when my mom died, it just ruined...it ruined everything. It killed my dad, it killed my brothers. She...it ruined everything,” Ella said. 

Frustration brewed in her gut as she spoke. She didn’t want to be mad at her mother. It wasn’t her fault she had a heart condition. It wasn’t her fault she died. But, for whatever reason, Ella couldn’t help the sick rage in her stomach. If her mother hadn’t died, her father wouldn’t have started drinking again, maybe. And then he wouldn’t have crashed his car. And she wouldn’t have felt so terrified about Jess. She wouldn’t be so utterly exhausted, so drained from the grief. And it was easier to be mad at her mother than at the whole world. 

“But it  _ didn’t  _ kill them,” Lorelai insisted. “And it didn’t kill you. You’re allowed to be happy, Ella. You are.”

Bottom lip trembling, Ella looked away from Lorelai. “No.”

Lorelai sighed heavily, hoping to make her see. “Not everything in your life is going to be a beginning and an end. You deserve a middle. Let yourself have a middle.”

Ella blew out a shaky breath, but didn’t speak.

“You told me at Thanksgiving that you had everything you wanted. And I saw it. I saw you there with Jess, with your art. You can have that. Don’t stop yourself from having it because you’re scared and you don’t think you deserve it.”

Ella’s stomach did a flip and she fiddled with her hair to keep herself from crying. Somehow, Lorelai had always been able to get to the root of her problems, to see things as they were. Maybe it was because both of them had grown up earlier than other people. Biting at her cheek, Ella let her mind drift back to Jess, to the way he made her feel. She had been in love with him for so long, she didn’t remember what it felt like not to be. To not instantly feel at home when she heard his voice, to not relax at his touch, to not feel her heart fluttering each time he smiled at her, like she was still sixteen. 

Sixteen. She’d been mixed up then as she was now. And she had gotten herself through it on her own, but she would have been lying if she said Jess didn’t help. Jess showed her what it was to live with intensity again, with passion. To let herself feel the deepest things and not be afraid. Her mind wandered back to her walk over to the Gilmore house a few hours earlier, as the January sun was setting. The air was freezing, but it felt only right to walk, since she’d just been inside the little blue house for probably the last time. For old time’s sake. She’d left her key on the kitchen counter. She didn’t know the next time she would be back in Stars Hollow. She wanted to say goodbye to the town, in case she didn’t get to later. Passing over the bridge, she’d spotted two red cardinals flying around in the dusky light of the evening. One was chasing the other, and then they would switch. A lively dance. They were so vivid against the dull blanket of winter. They reminded her of the way she was with Jess, the way they were together.

Sniffing again, Ella nodded. She locked eyes with Lorelai, sincere. “Okay.”

Lorelai let a soft smile across her lips, and pressed a kiss to the top of Ella’s head as they said goodnight. 

. . .

Driving so early in the morning, with Stevie Nicks on the radio, made her feel like she should be smoking a cigarette. Usually, it would take Ella less than four hours to make it back to Philly from Stars Hollow. But the frigid ice made the roads slick, and she was forced to go much slower than normal. Her lips were bluish with cold as she bit at her nails, the cloudy sky lightening to a murky pink. It was half past five and her eyes were heavy, but her body was wired with energy. After her chat with Lorelai, Ella had made a decent effort to actually get a good night’s sleep. She just couldn’t get Lorelai’s words out of her head, and her thoughts of Jess. She’d started up her Station Wagon just a little after midnight.

A middle was something she hadn’t considered. Truly, she hadn’t. She felt so silly. But it hadn’t occurred to her that she and Jess were just beginning. Their middle was coming. Maybe sooner than she had realized. For so long, she had been expecting the worst, even when she wasn’t. It was always there, in the back of her mind, whispering at her not to let her guard down, not to get comfortable. Not to feel love. Ella knew she couldn’t change overnight, and she felt like she was going to throw up just thinking about facing her fears. But Jess was right, as much as she hated to admit it. If she worked hard enough, she could feel better. She knew she could. 

So, there was a scribbled note left on Lorelai and Luke’s fridge and she sat bleary-eyed in her driver’s seat. As she pulled up in front of the apartment building, small flurries began to fly down on her windshield, glistening in the muddled sunlight. She trudged up the stairs, trying to stay quiet in her dirty snow boots. But her feet seemed leaden in her exhaustion and she felt bad for her neighbors. She bit at the insides of her cheeks as she ascended the stairs with her suitcase in hand. Tears were welling in her eyes, and for once, she couldn’t bring herself to hold them back. She let them drip down her cheeks, which had just begun to pink up in the warmth of the building. 

When she got to the door, she fumbled with her keys, her hands shaky. At first, she had the instinct to knock, before she remembered it was her own house. She didn’t know what was wrong with her.  _ So much _ , she thought, and then let a bitter laugh slip from her lips. She really was exhausted. Just before she could stick her key in the lock, the door opened for her. Jess stood on the threshold, disheveled. His hair was mussed up and she could tell he hadn’t shaved in a few days. Soon, he’d have a full beard. His eyes were reddish and she could tell he had just woken up. 

She swallowed dryly, dazed. She was aware she was still crying, but hardly knew why. She dropped her suitcase next to her, and her keys jangled to the ground as well. She raked both hands through her hair and sniffled.

“Hi,” she began, her voice weak and watery. “How’d you know I was here? Am I the star of the  _ Truman Show _ or something?”

He shrugged, letting a sad smirk cross his face and then fade immediately. “I heard you.”

She furrowed her brows. “Well, you should’ve brought a bat or something. What if I was a murderer?”

Again, the joyless smirk. “I was in the kitchen making coffee and you laughed. I could tell...it was your laugh.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. She scoffed self-consciously. “Yeah. I didn’t really sleep and I guess I’m kinda punch drunk. But I um...I just...had to come home.”

“You did?” he asked, keeping his voice even. If he sounded too hopeful, then he might  _ be _ hopeful. And he couldn’t have that. But she’d said she would be back on Sunday, and it was only Saturday morning. Surely, that had to be a good sign.

“I did,” she said, then her face crumpled and she uttered a little whimper. She looked down at her shoes, stomach swirling with embarrassment. Then, she looked back up to face him and sniffled again. “I was just really fucking scared. I’m sorry, Jess.”

His face softened and he nodded, watching as she put her head in her hands to hide her face. Silent sobs overtook her.

“I know. I know,” he said gently, then wrapped her up in his arms. 

She cried into his chest. 

“It’s nothing for you to be sorry over, alright?” he said, leaning back slightly and taking her face in his hands. “It’s okay.”

“But it’s not okay!” she exclaimed, pulling away from him, speaking earnestly through her tears. “I can’t believe I said I wanted to leave! I’m such a fucking coward. We said we would always try, and I wasn’t fucking trying! And I’m just-”

“Eleanor, honey, just take a deep breath,” he said, running his hands up and down her arms in an attempt to relax her. “We can figure this out. You and me.”

“But you don’t have to-”

“Hey, Daria,” he began calmly, taking her suitcase and her keys from the floor beside her, “just come in and get some sleep. We’ll talk about it when you wake up, okay?”

She eyed him for a moment through a blurry, watery haze. “Do you promise?”

For the first time all morning, his tiny smile held the hint of something pleasant. “I promise.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	42. All Norman Bates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Ella experience a bump in the road on the way to California.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone knows, there are only two chapters left after this, including the epilogue :)

Sighing, Jess glanced over at Ella, who sat in the passenger seat with a crinkled brow and the cap of a red pen between her teeth. They were halfway to California, and Jess didn’t think he’d seen her without that same pensive look on her face for the entirety of the trip thus far. But, he couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed at her insistence on working over the spring break. Her cheeks were lively with rosy color, and her eyes looked clearer. 

They weren’t all good days. Sometimes, she would come home from work or school and fall asleep on the couch almost immediately, lethargic and unable to articulate any of the thoughts which were jumbled in a confusing, depressed mess within her head. Then, when she awoke, she would often find herself needing to cry. Whether she knew what her feelings were about or not, she would let herself cry, like her new therapist was urging her to. Jess would rub circles on her back and make green tea and listen. And eventually, she would feel better. They were working it out together, just like he promised. Most of the time, there was a gnawing guilt sitting in her stomach. He shouldn’t have to take care of her, she would think. She was holding him back. She was weighing him down. Each time she brought it up though, he would patiently remind her of how much she had helped him, how this thing of theirs was a two-way street, and that he didn’t mind. 

She would smile, in spite of herself. Slowly, it was getting easier, and she was regaining her passion for things. She was drawing again, even painting, finally making use of the easel Jess had gotten her for Christmas. Jess often made jokes about how big of a role their therapists played in their lives, but they only made Ella laugh, instead of making her angry. It was true, but she was becoming less ashamed of it by the day. It would probably always feel a bit like her and Jess against the world, but their world could be bigger. Help didn’t need to be an evil. She didn’t need to make survival her ultimate goal. Instead, she was working on happiness. And, of course, the antidepressants were playing a part no one could understate. 

“You’re gonna make yourself carsick,” Jess warned begrudgingly, turning down the Killers song which played on the radio. 

Ella rolled her eyes but didn’t look up from the essay. “You’re the one who gets carsick, Jess. I’ll be fine.”

Again, he gave a slight sigh. Sometimes, the silence could get to even him. When she was working, it was like she was on a different planet. “Whatever, Daria. Just call me the invisible man.”

“You are  _ so  _ clingy,” she teased off-handedly, chuckling.

He scoffed, though a blush rose hotly up his neck and to the tips of his ears. “Am not.”

“Sure, tough guy,” she quipped, then finally looked up from the midterm papers she was grading. 

The current one was a pretty decent account of how Van Gogh made the most of his madness through his art. She was pretty engrossed in it, and it was almost free of her annotations. Her harsh grading style had become almost notorious with the T.A. circle at the University. But, sometimes, people really did turn in perfect work. Besides, she knew it was better to bite the bullet and give the advice. It was what the students were there for, after all. And subtlety had never been her strong suit.

For what it was worth, she was working on the drive in an attempt to have less to do once they actually reached California. The plans were to spend the week on the beach, reading and drawing, and popping into Jess’s father’s house every now and again. The visit was partially for vacation, partially an obligatory gesture. Jess hadn’t visited in so long, the guilt was starting to get to him. His father was a douchebag, but he had still welcomed Jess into his home when he didn’t have to. The gesture certainly counted for something. 

Watching the darkness of the road ahead, Jess tried to keep his anxiety at bay. He had to remind himself that Ella was with him, they were older, and even more stable than they had been the last time they visited. He didn’t need to feel nervous about the trip, but the memories of his lonely months in Venice were itching at the back of his mind. Sometimes, he would give in and scratch, even if it only made things worse. He bit at his bottom lip, eyes occasionally wandering to the sky. There were stars, lots out in the heartland of America with no light pollution. And there were hardly any other cars, as the night went from evening to late. There were no concrete plans about where to stay the night, just the next decent motel they happened upon. Each time Ella suggested stopping, Jess insisted he was fine to keep driving. He wanted to get as much done as he could manage. Truthfully, he was not looking forward to the silence of the nighttime, when Ella went to sleep and he had to be alone with thoughts of his father turning over and over in his head. 

“Do you hear that?” she asked after a moment, brows furrowing. With her attention away from her work, she had begun to pick up on a faint clicking sound.

“Hear what?” Jess said, broken from his anxious reverie.

“Listen,” she said, then gave a hesitant pause. Then added: “It’s getting louder.”

  
  


Jess did as she told him, turning the quiet music on the radio all the way down. Sure enough, beneath the rushing of the tires and the occasional screech they had come to tune out after years of riding in the death trap, there was a clicking. And it was getting louder, faster and faster. Then, Jess began to feel a drag in his speed and a resistance in his brakes.

. . .

Too tired even to work, Ella laid with her hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. They were somewhere in Kansas, with shitty cell reception and even shittier motels. No auto repair shop would be open until the morning, the man with the tow truck had said, but he suspected it was the engine, based on the sound they had described to him. Luckily, the man had been kind enough to drive them to the nearest 24-hour lodging. The Ambassador would sit solitary in the tow yard until the morning, when they came to bring it to whatever repair shop had the lowest prices. In all honesty, Ella was just glad they hadn’t been forced to spend the night on the side of the highway. It had taken them almost a half an hour before finally getting Ella’s cell in the right position to handle a call to information, to get the name of a towing company. The whole ordeal had been nerve-wracking, but she was feeling marginally better behind the safety of their closed motel room door. At the front desk there sat a disinterested woman with thick glasses which magnified her light eyes and a magazine open on the desk in front of her. She had told them a lost key was a $50 fee before sending them on their way with little more than a glance.

It wasn’t a shock. Jess’s car had been living on borrowed time for quite a while, anyway. Rusty and creaky and dying. Ella almost felt vindicated. Finally, her predictions had come true. She had expressed doubt when Jess had said he would be the one driving, to give her time to work and relax. He’d been encouraging her to relax more often recently, and she appreciated it. But riding passenger in the Ambassador was anything but relaxing. Ella still couldn’t believe how flabbergasted Jess had looked when he had to pull over on the side of the road, unable to drive safely with the way the gas pedal wasn’t cooperating. Ella felt a bit of foolish nostalgia at the thought of the vehicle. Another site of their youth bites the dust.

“I don’t know,” Jess sighed into his phone, running a hand down his tired face. 

He’d been talking to Sasha for the last twenty minutes. It was past ten, but not the middle of the night. Jimmy, however, wasn’t available to talk apparently. Sasha had been suggesting alternative plans for them to get to California, though both Jess and Ella knew there was no way they were getting down there anytime soon if the car was as broken as they suspected. Even if it wasn’t completely dead (which it was), they’d have to wait for parts to come in. Who knew how long that would take for such an old make and model.

Eventually, Jess pushed Sasha off the phone with some muttered excuses and forced goodbyes. His head was swimming with fatigue, and he didn’t think he could deal with another second of his stepmother. Not considering how chatty and cheery she was. Putting his cell phone on the rickety nightstand next to him, he flopped down onto his back. The comforter had a faded floral pattern, but was surprisingly soft. He blew out a long breath and shut his eyes for a moment.

“So she took it well?” Ella asked flatly. She had heard Sasha’s good-natured badgering as she lay silently next to Jess.

“Oh yeah,” Jess replied. “Very understanding.”

Ella snorted a laugh and sat up again, looking down at him. She raked her fingers through his hair affectionately. He sighed again, eyes still closed. Biting at the inside of her cheek, Ella fought back a small smirk at the sight of him in the low glow of the singular bedside lamp. The night certainly hadn’t gone according to plan, but she couldn’t bring herself to feel too upset about not making it to California. She still wasn’t the biggest fan of Jimmy or the Pacific Ocean. She kept stroking his hair, eyeing his long lashes and exhausted pallor. She could tell how sleepy he was, even if he wouldn’t exactly admit the effects of driving so long. 

She looked around the small room, big enough only for a queen bed, a small TV, some nightstands, and a bathroom off to the side. The rosebud wallpaper was yellowed with age and there were a few precarious stains on the beige carpet. But the air had a homey smell of dust and she decided it wasn’t the worst place they could have ended up. Fortunately, they didn’t need to find dinner, having already grabbed some takeout about an hour before the end of the Ambassador’s long, strange life.

“At least we won’t have to reconnect with that weird guy who works on the boardwalk,” Ella said, breaking the comfortable silence.

“The guy who sells the hemp hats?” Jess asked, then cracked his eyes open again. “You think he still works there?”

“I bet he’ll still be standing out there long after you and I are dead,” Ella replied.

Jess laughed. “You’re probably right.”

“Maybe I should grade more,” she said distractedly, speaking mostly to herself as her idle hands made uneasiness creep up in her stomach.

Rolling his eyes, Jess grabbed her gently around the waist and pulled her down onto the bed, guiding her head to his chest. “This is an addiction, Stevens. I’m cutting you off.”

“Yeah, well, the first step to healing is acceptance,” she quipped, placing a kiss on his t-shirt and settling in against him. For once, she decided to oblige him and sleep instead of stay up into the early hours of the morning with her red pen. Her therapist had also suggested doing work in moderation.

Jess chuckled breathily. “It’s true.” Then, after a moment: “I think I’m honestly more upset about the car than not getting to go visit daddy dearest.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured.”

“Oh, am I that transparent?” he deadpanned.

“Like a glass house, Mariano,” she teased. “I guess it  _ is _ the end of an era.”

He nodded. “Yeah. No more weird cigarette burns on the ceiling.”

She laughed. One of the only nights in high school she had ever gotten stoned, Jess had picked her up from her house by surprise, throwing pebbles at her window. He found her eyes red-rimmed and glassy, her cheeks flushed, and her mind spacey. All she’d wanted to do was drive around and smoke cigarettes and listen to Joy Division. At the time, she hadn’t told him about the blowout fight with her father and Fiona. Not until the next morning over breakfast in the diner. When she’d accidentally burned the ceiling of the car with her cigarette, leaving a dark circle, she’d started tearing up. In response, Jess lit a cigarette of his own and pressed it to the ceiling without hesitation, unphased. 

Smiling at the memory, she threw an arm over his waist. “And no more barrette stuck in the window crank that won’t come out no matter how fucking hard I try.”

Jess snorted a laugh. After the Arctic Monkeys concert they’d attended the previous summer, they’d had sex in the backseat. One of her barrettes had somehow ended up eternally wedged in the window crank. The next day, she’d taken a pair of pliers to it fruitlessly. Jess had teased her, the woman who prided herself on being able to fix anything, mercilessly, ever since. 

“And about a million other ‘no mores.’ Who knows what’ll happen in our next car,” he said.

“Only time will tell,” she muttered through a yawn. “I love you, James Dean.”

“Love you back,” he replied.

A gentle click sounded in the cozy quiet as Jess shut off the lamp. Getting comfortable again, he ran a hand up and down over her back and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. Then, he bit at his bottom lip, and his mind flashed to the small red box in this duffel. With the thin gold ring, a tiny amethyst in the middle. He’d bought it months ago, on a random trip to some antique shop with Chris, and he had a few ideas in mind. He hadn’t nailed down a real proposal plan yet, but took it with to California just in case. It had been wishful thinking, of course, since California was neither of their favorite places. And they weren’t going to make it there anyway. Still, it was there. It was happening. He just didn’t know when. It made his insides feel fluttery and excited and almost sick with nerves. But, for now, he decided getting the fuck out of Kansas would be the first step.

Dozing, Ella let her mind wander again to their teenage years. She felt her heart ache with sentimentality, and then brushed it off. Not because she wanted to ignore the feeling, but because all of a sudden she didn’t feel it. She didn’t need to miss Jess when he was right next to her. She didn’t need to worry about the past.  _ Let yourself have a middle _ . Lorelai’s words reappeared in her mind, soft and comforting. 

“Jess?” she asked, voice beginning to grow rough with sleep.

“Hmmm?” he hummed, and she felt the word vibrating in her ear against his chest.

“Do you think that lady at the front desk is gonna go all Normal Bates on us?” she asked.

He sighed, but then it turned into a laugh. “No, Daria, I don’t think so.”

“I bet that’s what Jant Leigh thought too,” she replied, all too serious.

Jess kept his smirk. “Just call me Marion Crane, then.”

She giggled, then was quiet for another moment. Jess slipped his hand beneath her t-shirt and began rubbing small circles on her skin. Usually, she fell asleep within a couple minutes of laying down. Apparently, something was eating at her.

“I think I’m gonna take that job at the University for next year,” she spoke again suddenly.

“Really?” he asked, smirk turning to a small, genuine smile.

“Yeah,” she said, almost shyly. “I’ll have time for actually making some damn art, but I’ll still have a steady income, good benefits...ugh do I sound like a middle-aged tragedy?”

“No,” he said, reassurance in his tone. “I think it’s gonna be great, Eleanor. Seriously.”

“I just...I think I’ll be happy doing it.”

“I do too,” he said, kissing her hair once more. “Congratulations, Stevens.”

“Thanks,” she said with a nervous chuckle, blushing a bit. “And I’ll have that whole sexy professor thing going for me, which is a plus.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul!


	43. Nora Roberts Shit Like That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella performs another exercise in spontaneity.

By late May, summer was blooming early and warm and fragrant in Philadelphia. Ella pulled her hair back in a low bun as she padded out onto the terrace. The sun was finally going down, painting the sky a pinkish orange. In the small view of the city past the other apartment buildings, she could see the buildings beginning to light up, tiny and twinkly. Jess was already out there, with a copy of  _ Sharp Objects _ in hand. He chewed on his eraser, his brows furrowed as he concentrated on the words. There were already chunks of Ella’s messy cursive decorating the pages, and she’d insisted he read it as soon as she finished it the week before. He was already three quarters of the way through.

“This book is fucking crazy, Stevens,” he said as she walked out, not looking up from the text.

“Yeah, cutie. That’s why I like it,” she told him, smiling widely and leaning against the railing next to him.

“So unpredictable,” he deadpanned.

“Whatever, James Dean,” she replied, rolling her eyes and snorting a laugh. 

Smirking, he finally shut the book and tossed it back onto one of the mismatched armchairs. Following her gaze, he saw the flaming orangey sun descending behind the cityscape. With the evening light reflected against her freckled face, he could see the green flecks in her eyes when he turned to look at her.

At first, she had not wanted to go to the graduation ceremony at all. She certainly wasn’t walking across the stage in a gown. But, she decided to go for the undergrads she had been the teacher assistant for. They clapped in the auditorium, and went out with Chris, Leo, Matthew, and Mabel to try the new Italian restaurant, which ended up being decent. It wasn’t entirely unceremonious, but there wasn’t much fanfare. Jess didn’t expect Ella to want anything more. She’d ended up finishing her finals a week before the actual ceremony, anyway. 

But, still, she was finally done. Chris had even ordered a cake for the table in celebration, despite Ella’s blushy protests. She doubted it would sink in for a while. She was a perpetual student, and was already beginning to feel anxious without steady classwork and homework. But she would start teaching her summer classes in a week or two, and she was planning to fill her time with art and helping out at Truncheon until then. 

For the moment, though, she watched the sunset. She felt the night begin to cool down, breezes blowing past her. And Jess could practically feel her relax. Since deciding to take the job at Penn, she’d seemed calmer. He hadn’t realized just how heavily it had been weighing on her until after it was over. She was using vibrant color in her paintings again, which he hadn’t seen in what felt like years. She was coming around to Truncheon after her classes, spending nights with their friends up in the apartment. She was playing music with Leo and running lines with Mabel. 

Of course, she still had days when she felt so hopeless about the state of her life, and honestly, the world, that she couldn’t even explain her sadness. But she was working on it. She was trying. It made Jess so proud he almost couldn’t handle it. Watching her, so comfortable in her own skin, made a tiny smirk form on his lips.

As though she could feel his gaze, she suddenly faced him again. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said lightly. “Just looking at you.”

“At me?” she mocked him with dramatic batting of her eyelashes and a breathy voice. 

“What can I say? You’re irresistible,” he quipped with a shrug.

She rolled her eyes, trying to brush off the flush rising to her cheeks. “You have to stop saying Nora Roberts shit like that to me.”

“Never,” he shot back smugly.

“Jackass.” 

“Nihilist,” he said, then pressed a kiss to her rosy cheek. “A nihilist with a master’s degree.”

“Yeah, it seems that way,” she said, her words a sigh.

“Hey, Stevens,” he began, tilting his head at her a little.

“Yes, Mariano?” she echoed, teasing.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said sincerely.

She bit at the inside of her cheek and smoothed her hands over her simple olive green dress, fidgety and blushing once more. “Thank you. I’m proud of me, too.”

Jess’s smile widened but he felt his heartbeat picking up, stomach churning with anxiety. He felt so wholly content standing next to her, so completely enveloped by love. Dimples and Bette Davis eyes and a loud laugh. So stubborn and passionate and understanding. She was the end and the beginning of everything for him, and he almost felt out of breath at the thought of what was going to happen next. He cleared his throat and ran a hand over his mouth anxiously.

“You okay?” she asked, noticing his uneasiness.

He nodded. “Yeah, Elle...yeah.”

Sighing, Jess decided to bite the bullet, rip off the bandaid. His hands were shaky with excitement. He went over to the suit jacket draped over the armchair behind him. Reaching into his inside pocket, he grabbed the small velvet box. Ella looked on in confusion, as he turned back around and landed on one knee.

A thick shadow of realization crossed her face and her mouth fell slightly agape. “No way.”

“Look, I know you don’t like the big romantic stuff. And please stop me if this all too much of a patriarchal mating ritual for you. But I love you and you love me and we love each other,” he began, looking up at her. He had told himself not to cry, but he was already starting to. With the sunset behind her, Ella looked ethereal and beautiful. “And we’re supposed to be together.”

She rolled her eyes though they were growing tearful, letting out a scoff as he repeated back his own words from years earlier. The night he had tried to get her to come with him to New York flashed across her mind, but her heart didn’t twist in pain at the memory. Instead, it fluttered pleasantly. 

“You Hemingway motherfucker,” she whispered through a watery laugh, though she blinked away the tears. 

He chuckled breathily, face hot with scarlet color. “I’ll take that one as a compliment. But...I think we should get married. What about you?”

A small giggle escaped her lips before she could help it and she just couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she spoke. “Y’know, most of the time, I don’t really see the point in getting married.”

Jess’s face fell for only a second.

“But that’s most of the time,” she said. “Not when I’m with you, James Dean.”

After a moment of shock on his face, he scoffed and gave a dramatic groan. “Fuck off, Daria.”

Ella shrugged. “Just thought I should give you a taste of your own medicine,” she told him, smile turning to a smirk. “But, if you still wanna marry me after that one, then I’d love to.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Really.”

Rising quickly, he enveloped her in a tight hug and kissed her. His lips were gentle and sweet, and almost reminded her of their first kiss so many years ago. Then again, each time he kissed her was pretty much as good as, if not better than, the first time. And, to her surprise, she felt no fear. Something clicked inside her, and she was completely certain. When she pulled away to look at him, she wiped at the stray tears which had fallen on his cheeks. 

“I can’t believe you got down on one knee and everything,” she said.

He shrugged humbly. “I try.”

“That you do.”

He looked away from her intense gaze shyly and took a step back, holding the open ring box out to her. “Do you want this ring, by the way?”

“Ah yes! I almost forgot!” she said emphatically. As he had spoken, knelt down, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from his own. Brown and sparkling and kind.

Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the tiny stone. A polished light purple amethyst shone in the center, and she took it out and slipped the thin gold band over her left ring finger, staring at it. It fit perfectly, and Jess almost couldn’t believe it. After having found it in a tray in the antique store, he’d thought at least some resizing would be necessary.

“I know it’s not huge or anything, but-”

“It’s perfect, Mariano. I mean, it’s fucking lavendar,” she said, flabbergasted. 

Jess smirked a tiny smirk. “Yeah, well, lavender is for luck.”

. . .

Sat at the island with a paper open in front of him, Jess munched on his cereal. He couldn’t help the smile which was constantly tugging at the corners of his mouth. They were getting married. In all honesty, he hadn’t been entirely sure she would say yes, given her aversion to most things traditional and romantic. Then again, she had certainly seemed to come around to his idealist ways as of late, at least a little bit. And he’d wanted to do it the way it was usually done, on one knee with a ring box open in his hand. He didn’t know exactly what had possessed him to do so, but he was glad. She deserved something normal, something just the right amount of sweet. 

Padding on bare feet, Ella waltzed towards the kitchen wearing nothing but one of Jess’s t-shirts, body and mind light from the night before. The early sunshine of the morning bathed the apartment in a sparkling golden glow, made more beautiful by their own joy, it seemed. On her finger, she wore the ring, still new and foreign. But she felt her heart speed up a bit every time she looked down at it. She, too, had been surprised at the way he’d proposed. But, somehow, it managed to feel perfect. It wasn’t over-the-top, but it felt like Jess. Earnest and charming.

He didn’t hear her, too engrossed in his reading, until she pressed a kiss to the top of his head on her way by. He winked at her when they made eye contact, and she rolled her eyes playfully in response as she put on some tea and coffee. 

“Hey, Jess?” she asked, leaning over the counter across from him, mimicking their days at Luke’s Diner.

“Hm?” he said, looking up from the news with eyebrows raised.

“Do you wanna get married?” She bit at the inside of her cheek, slightly anxious.

“Well, considering I just proposed to you yesterday, I’d say yeah, I wanna get married,” he replied, teasing and slightly confused.

“No. I meant today,” she continued.

He chuckled a bit, but then saw she was serious. “ _ Today _ ?”

A smile blossomed on her face and she shrugged. “Yeah. Why not? Let’s just go down to the courthouse. We could call up Chris and everyone, to see if they wanna be our witnesses. ”

He gave a surprised scoff, raising his eyebrows. “Pretty spontaneous of you.”

She shrugged, a small smirk on her lips. “I learned from the best. I mean, do you really wanna spend all that money? I don’t really care about having a wedding. The whole tradition seems pretty antiquated to me, anyway.”

“Agreed,” Jess replied, nodding. “Except, what about Luke and Lorelai? And Lane?”

“I mean, we’ve all been to weddings. They’re pretty much the same every time. We can send them a card or something. I just wanna do it, Mariano,” she said, eyes wide and starry with excitement. “I don’t wanna wait. I mean, we’ve been together, more or less, for like, seven years.”

“Minus about four years in the middle there,” Jess pointed out, chuckling.

She rolled her eyes playfully. “Like you weren’t pining for me that whole time, loverboy.”

“Hypocrite,” he shot back. “You really wanna do this””

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” she said, with the most certainty possible. It made Jess so happy he almost wanted to start crying. 

“You sure you don’t wanna plan it out and everything? I know how much you love planning,” Jess said. His heart was racing in his chest at her proposition. But, he was waiting for her to second-guess it, for her feet to turn cold. He didn’t want her to doubt her decision later, even if the idea of marrying her immediately made him beyond ecstatic.

“I love you more, though,” she said. “But I only want to do it if you want to also. What do you say, James Dean? Is today our wedding day?”

His smile grew, and he was practically beaming. “Yeah. It is.”

. . .

After a couple hours waiting on cold, hard wooden benches in the lobby of the courthouse, with Chris snapping as many pictures as possible on his fancy camera (which he bought inexplicably) and Mabel fussing over whether she had done Ella’s makeup well enough, the six of them stood in the air conditioning of the courthouse’s makeshift chapel. In her hands, Ella held a bouquet of thirteen yellow daffodils Jess had picked up from the supermarket on the way. Her stomach was doing flips, her smile was beginning to hurt her cheeks. Despite the spontaneity of the decision, she was beginning to feel like she had been waiting forever. The period after arriving at the courthouse when Leo had to sweet talk one of his friends from high school, who worked as an administrator at city hall, into giving them a marriage license without the customary 24-hour delay had been agony. But they had pulled it off. 

They had all made an effort to look presentable, though Ella could hear her mother’s voice in the back of her mind calling them ragamuffins. Jess wore a simple white button-down with black pants, along with his only pair of real leather shoes and a belt to match. Over it, he wore the suit jacket Ella had been so shocked to see him in when she’d first come to Truncheon’s open house. No tie, of course. The only white dress Ella owned was covered in a pattern of black flowers, and she found the traditional sentiments about virginity behind white dresses to be troubling, to say the least. Instead, she opted for a plain navy blue dress with spaghetti straps, made from satin. It was the fanciest piece of clothing she owned, bought for a party at Truncheon two months earlier that had ultimately been cancelled due to a phantom March blizzard. If she had known at the time that it was to be her wedding dress, she would have laughed in disbelief. 

On her feet were her old black ballet flats. She felt as though not wearing them would violate old time’s sake. Her hair was curled and pinned half-back. Her makeup was minimal, with small winged black eyeliner and muted pink lip gloss, a little less than she would have done on herself. But Mabel had practically squealed with delight when Ella asked her to put together the wedding look. Her heart swelled at the sight of Matthew and Chris standing behind Jess, and the thought of Leo and Mabel behind her. After so long feeling out of place, Ella thought she was exactly where she was supposed to be, with the exact right people. If she didn’t know any better, she would have called it destiny. But, at the idea, she wanted to roll her eyes at herself. It was Jess’s job to pull out the Hemingway bullshit.

Jess. As he stood across from her, she could see the ghost of the boy she’d met at the diner back when she was a frustrated high schooler. Back when he had been an angry kid. She thought of love at first sight, and how silly it was, and how whole-heartedly he believed in it. A jewel of fondness sat warmly in her core, and her eyes shone brightly with affection. Even back then, he had given her some sort of lively joy when her world was flat, filled with monotony, drudgery, grief. He had shown her how life could be, if she stopped holding onto her pain so tightly. And she liked to think she had shown him a thing or two, as well. 

He looked so grown up. Still, it often struck her how much he had changed. The stubble on his jaw, the slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled his slightly crooked smile, or, of course, smirked. His more respectable haircut and his more mature way of dressing. But there would always be a part of him that was exactly the same as it always had been. The foundation that sometimes cracked but never crumbled. The two of them against the world. She thought, not for the first time, of how wholly she trusted in him, more than she ever had before. He felt safe. She felt like she had known him for all eternity. And she felt so sure of marrying him that it was staggering. She swallowed thickly as the officiant gave his dull spiel about legal commitment, which he probably gave to some hopeful young couple every day. Blinking back the happy tears, willing them not to fall and ruin the makeup Mabel had worked so hard on, Ella did as the officiant said and passed her bouquet to Leo behind her. She and Jess joined hands. For some reason, the gesture seemed a bit cheesy, but she did it anyway, not without a sardonic smirk. He gave her fingers a squeeze of reassurance, winking at her, reading her expression expertly. She almost snorted a laugh, but bit the inside of her cheek to stop it. The officiant asked who would like to say their vows first, and Ella immediately spoke up.

“I will,” she said, looking over at the man and then back into Jess’s eyes. “You’re the writer here and I have no interest in following whatever you’re gonna say.”

Jess laughed a little, along with the rest of them, and nodded. He took in a deep breath, still shocked at what was happening. For the life of him, he could not remember a time he had ever before felt so content. The small, nagging voice in his mind told him he didn’t deserve her. She was perfect, after all. But then, she wasn’t, was she? She was stubborn and pessimistic and sometimes stuck in her ways. He loved those things about her, too, even if he sometimes didn’t like them. He had loved her the moment he saw her, and still did, even after finding her flaws. And she loved him, even after finding his. The thought made the voice in his head go completely quiet, for the first time in a very long time. The broken pieces of the puzzles which made them up just happened to fit together exactly, and that was all that mattered, he decided. And he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t nervous about her falling out of love with him. He wasn’t worried about her realizing he wasn’t enough. Instead, he felt complete. He felt ready. 

Ella cleared her throat, biting the inside of her cheek again. Then, after taking a moment to compose herself, she began: “So, here we are, Mariano. I’m really happy we decided to do this today, but that means we didn’t have time to plan what to say beforehand. And, like I said, you’re the writer here. So, I’m just gonna try my best...like we always do. We try for each other. I promise I’ll keep trying forever. Because there’s not been one second since I met you that I haven’t wanted to be with you. I miss you whenever you’re gone, even if you’re only gone for a minute. Even when I fucking hate you, I want you with me. Because you are the only person who’s ever made me feel like I’m home.”

Pausing for a moment, she blinked back her tears again. And she disentangled one of her hands from his, to wipe away the dampness on his cheeks with her thumb. His face reddened with embarrassment, but still, the small smile was ever-present on his lips. She clasped her hand in his once more, and continued.

“I love you, simple as that. I didn’t even believe in love when I met you. But then you came and fucked that mindset up royally. You gave me a bed when I was drunk, and you wrote notes in the margins of my books, and you showed me the Hudson River. And a million other things. I have never known a person who is more kind and intelligent and generous and thoughtful. And such a smartass,” she added, and everyone laughed.

She shrugged playfully, and squeezed his hands in return. “You’re the fucking best. You’re it, cutie. I know you know how I feel about that hopeless romantic bullshit you’re partial to. And I never thought I’d believe in soulmates. But, today, with you, I do. Because you’re mine, James Dean. And I’m yours. You once told me we belonged to each other, and I think that’s true. So, why not make it official in the eyes of the law?”

Again, they laughed. But Jess had to choke back more crying at her words. And he had to prepare himself for what he knew was coming. She had always been the better public speaker. He was so nervous he could barely contain himself, despite her beautiful vows. In fact, maybe even because of them. She wasn’t the writer, but she’d pretty much nailed it, he thought. For a fleeting moment, he felt sick from the anxiety. What if he fucked it up? But, again, she squeezed his hands. 

And he felt more sure of himself as the officiant passed the torch to him. He cleared his throat, sniffed, and met her ardent hazel gaze. At once, he felt like it was just the two of them. 

“I may be the writer, Stevens. But in just a minute everyone will see why I didn’t go into public speaking,” he began. She shook her head a little at him and giggled, urging him to go on. “When I came back to Stars Hollow for my mom’s wedding, all I could think about was you. You were everywhere in that town, even when you weren’t. I wanted to tell you how much I loved you, and I didn’t know how. Granted, the plan I came up with to tell you definitely wasn’t the best. But, while I was there, Luke gave me this book to help me...learn about open communication.”

She let out another laugh and her cheeks were mirthful roses. 

“Hilarious, I know,” he deadpanned, and she kept giggling. The sound made his grin widen. “Anyway, I’ll spare you the details, even though you’ve been asking me for them for years. I always wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. Pretty much since the minute I saw you, honey. Even if you can’t relate to that Hemingway stuff, as you so eloquently put it. But there was one part in the book that made me decide to tell you. The narrator’s talking about the divorce of these two middle-aged tragedies named Philip and Judy. The narrator says Philip would have figured out how much he loved Judy if he had asked himself a few questions.”

Pausing, he averted her gaze for a moment. “I can’t believe Luke isn’t here to see me put this shit in my vows. I’m sorry, Eleanor.”

She chuckled through the happy tears welling in her eyes. “It’s okay, cutie. It’s perfect.”

He cleared his throat, nodding slightly. Taking his hands out of her grip, he reached into his jacket pocket to pull out an old, folded book page. He opened it, looking down, and began once more. “He should have asked himself the following questions: ‘Whose phone calls or visits are never unwanted or too long? Do you see her face? Who would you most like to have in your life to ward off moments of loneliness? Do you see her face? When you travel, who would make your travels more enjoyable? Do you see her face? When you’re in pain, who would you most like to comfort you? Do you see her face? When something wonderful happens in your life, with whom would you first want to share the news? Do you see her face? Whose face appears to you?’”

After the recitation, he folded the piece of paper back up and tucked it inside his jacket. 

“Did you keep that this whole time?” she asked, blurting out the question before she could stop herself. She was overwhelmed with affection at the gesture, and for the moment, she could see no one else besides Jess as he stood across from her.

“Yeah, I ripped it out before I gave the book back to Luke,” he explained, lowering his voice, conspiratory.

She laughed. “Thief.”

He shrugged, unaffected. “Que será, será.”

Stifling another laugh, she nodded and composed herself. “Just checking. Go on.”

He retook her hands gently. His joking air disappeared and all at once, he was feeling the full weight of his emotion again. Clearing his throat, he hoped to ward off the shake in his voice. “I saw your face every time, Elle. Every single time. I wanted you to be that for me, and I wanted to be that for you. Because you’re beautiful, and you’re brilliant, and you’re the most unselfish person in the world. And I don’t want to spend one more second not married to you.” Then, after taking a deep breath, he finished: “Eleanor Stevens, I have been in love with you since I was seventeen.”

A smile so wide it hurt her spread across Ella’s face. She shook her head at herself as she began to cry just a little harder. Before she could think to say anything else, she pulled him in to place an affectionate kiss on his lips.

“Hey, we’ve still got a few paragraphs to get through, kids,” the officiant scolded them gruffly, though not unkindly. 

Images of a flannel-clad diner owner back in Connecticut appeared in Ella’s mind. She caught Jess’s gaze, and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. She bit her lip, and then put her head to his shoulder, laughing loudly. His arm wrapped instinctively around her waist. Standing there, leaning on each other, they shook happily with messy giggles.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’ve still got the epilogue left, but this is the final regular chapter. Sorry this took so long; endings give me writer’s block. Thank you so much for reading! Please let me know what you thought! Feedback nourishes my soul. I have absolutely loved writing this story. I hope you liked this chapter! :)


	44. If James Bond Was Bruce Springsteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ella tries to focus on the future.

_ five years later _

Biting at the inside of her cheek, Ella struggled to keep her eyes open. One hand was on her stomach, and her free hand went to her mouth. Ever since getting pregnant, the nervous nail-biting was nonstop. She didn’t know exactly why, and she didn’t know exactly how to get it to stop, either. After Jess finished another passage, he cast her a glance and frowned when he saw her fingers resting on her lips. He scoffed and gently reached over to bring her nails from her teeth.

“You need to quit that, Eleanor,” he said.

Rolling her eyes, Ella shifted and readjusted her position with her head on his shoulder as he read. “ _ Fine _ . I’m sorry. I’m just nervous to see your mom tonight.”

“ _ Why _ ?” he asked, furrowing his brows.

She sighed. Things had been tense between Jess and his mother as of late, since she had accidentally landed in a religious cult with her husband and daughter. They had managed to escape before being totally brainwashed, but the incident left a bad taste in Jess’s mouth. It reminded him a bit too much of his childhood, and the thought of Doula having to experience any of what he had made his insides squirm. The atmosphere of frustration had resulted in Ella and Jess waiting as long as possible to tell Liz and TJ about the pregnancy. Seeing them at Luke and Lorelai’s wedding was simply inevitable, and the news would be obvious. Liz was a little over four months along, and had a clearly pregnant belly, which showed in the simple gray dress printed with small black flowers she was wearing. Jess, Ella knew, was more likely worried about exposing his own baby to Liz, even before she was born. 

Ella shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t want seeing her to make you too upset. We’re the ones who get to decide how involved she is.”

Jess let a small smile across his lips. He leaned down to kiss the crown of Ella’s head. “Don’t worry about me, honey. I know.”

“Okay,” she said in earnest. “Just let me know if that changes.”

“Will do, Stevens.” Then, he shut the book, saving his place with his finger, and looked over at her inquisitively. Her eyes were tired, and she was a little pale. “You can sleep if you want to. We don’t have to be at Liz and TJ’s any specific time. No one here is gonna care if you rest for a little while.”

“Maybe, Mariano,” she said, running her hand over her stomach absently. “I just hate being so tired during the day.”

“Hey, at least the puking finally stopped,” Jess said with an opportunistic chuckle. 

Letting her eyes flutter shut, she laughed with him. “That’s true.” Up until two weeks earlier had seen Ella constantly slammed with morning sickness. The tide was recently changing to crazy cravings, barbeque sauce on top of a banana being the highlight of the last week.

A couple minutes later, with Jess back to his reading, Ella did end up dozing off. She was cozy on the Gilmore couch, wrapped in a black cardigan over her soft, worn dress. The autumn chill had just arrived in the Northeast, and Ella had yet to adjust to it once more all the way. The air smelled crisp and familiar in Stars Hollow. It was the first time they had been back in over a year, busy trying to get pregnant, and then freaking out once they finally did. But distance had indeed made the heart grow fonder. Ella was happy to be able to see everyone again, and the idea that she was free to leave whenever she wanted, guilt-free, made the trip infinitely more enjoyable. The little blue house was finally sold to a young new family over eighteen months prior. 

She floated back to reality at the sound of Luke’s heavy footfalls down the stairs. Opening her eyes, she didn’t move. Instead, she watched with Jess as Luke descended from the upstairs in his wedding suit. They’d barely arrived for the visit when Lue had raced upstairs with self-conscious requests for honest opinions. Then, he’d remained upstairs for twenty minutes fussing over himself before finally returning. Ella fought back a laugh as he came down, but he did in fact look decent in the suit. A fond smirk came over Jess’s face as he shut the book with a  _ snap _ , putting it beside him.

“Well, where’s Right Said Fred when you need ‘em?” he drawled dryly.

Ella snorted, finally raising her head from Jess’s shoulder. “I second that.”

Luke barely noticed their compliments, instead fiddling with the small silk square meant to go in his pocket. “The guy who sold me this suit put this thing in the box. I don’t know what the hell to do with it.”

“It’s a pocket square,” Jess explained, brows furrowed. Even he knew that one after being forced to wear a tux at the launch party for Dave Eggers’ collection at Truncheon last year. “Do the math.”

“Oh,” Luke said, looking down at it. Realization dawned on his face and he put the pocket square in its rightful place. “Oh, it looks kind of nice.”

“Sure does, boss,” Ella said, biting back giggles. Luke was like a deer in headlights.

“So, this is the big outfit for tomorrow,” Luke announced, finally turning to them and putting his arms up to show them the look. “Get it all out now.”

“I like it. You look like James Bond if James Bond was also Bruce Springsteen,” Ella said.

“That’s what it is!” Jess said with mock excitement and wide eyes, pointing to Ella.

“But, I think it’ll make Lorelai’s whole life, Luke. Seriously,” she said with more sincerity, almost pride.

“Thanks, kid,” he said shyly. Then, he looked at his nephew. “Jess?”

Jess paused for a moment, then stood up and spoke with gravity. “Turn around?”

“Jess,” Luke said, sighing in exasperation. 

Raising his eyebrows expectantly, Jess gestured in a circle. “Turn.”

Luke did as Jess said, spinning in a slow circle. “Well?”

“You are a very handsome man,” Jess answered.

Luke rolled his eyes. “All right.”

“I mean, very hot,” Jess continued emphatically.

“I got it,” Luke said.

Jess chose not to take the hint. “Rande Gerber hot.”

“Enough, Jess,” Luke warned.

Jess’s face softened with sincerity. “Hey. You look good.”

“Yeah?” Luke asked, surprised.

Jess clapped Luke on the shoulder and then went to sit back next to his wife. “I only do sincere once, man.”

“Right, thanks,” Luke replied.

Ella laughed, feeling nostalgic but not letting it overtake her. Since finding out about the pregnancy, Ella had been trying to focus on the future instead of the past. Even if it scared her a little. She was overjoyed at the idea she was going to get to see Luke and Lorelai marry. Before the conversation could go in any other direction, Kirk rushed into the house unannounced, taking a seat on the armchair opposite Ella and Jess. He put his head in his hands and gave a distressed groan.

“Luke! Everything is under control!” Kirk screeched.

“What happened to knocking, Kirk?” Luke asked.

“Yeah!” Jess said ardently, picking up his book again. “What if we were naked?”

Ella nudged him playfully with her elbow as a soft, sly smirk came over his face. 

“Don’t say that,” Luke admonished him. 

Kirk shot up and headed in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. 

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

Ella watched from her spot, her head back on Jess’s shoulder, as Kirk shouted about how he was going to throw up because he had messed up the wedding decorations at the gazebo, where the ceremony was to take place the following day. In the midst of the argument, Lorelai wandered in from the kitchen with a Pop Tart in her hands. She wordlessly handed one to Ella, who had been telling Lorelai about her recent sweet tooth during their frequent phone calls. Smiling gratefully, Ella raised her head and threw the wrapper away in the bin next to her as the scene unfolded in front of her. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Luke asked.

“I live here,” Lorelai said plainly. “You look hot.”

“Rande Gerber hot,” Jess chimed in without looking up from his reading. 

Ella snorted a laugh. 

“Yeah.” Lorelai continued munching on her pastry.

“You’re supposed to be at the Inn!” Luke insisted. Lorelai was meant to be spending the day at the Dragonfly, before Luke, Jess, and Ella departed to sleep in the apartment above the diner for the night. 

“I was,” Lorelai said. “They don’t have Pop Tarts.”

“Get outta here!” Luke exclaimed.

“Why?” Lorelai’s brow crinkled.

“I’m not supposed to see you before the wedding,” Luke explained. “It’s bad luck.”

“Oh, are we doing that?” Lorelai asked.

The confusion went on, as Rory entered the room as well and was equally surprised Luke wanted to partake in the superstitious tradition. The two Gilmore women pretended to leave lamely before Luke gave into letting Lorelai stay. At talk of pizza for dinner, Ella’s stomach growled, despite her having just finished the Pop Tart. Jess heard it and chuckled, standing and putting his book in his back pocket before holding his hand out for her to grab. 

“We should get going. Liz is making dinner and we won’t have the heart to leave if you threaten pizza,” Jess said.

“You sure? There’s still time to back out,” Lorelai said.

Ella sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear after rising. “No, I think we’re stealing enough thunder telling her the night before your wedding, let alone the day of.”

“Well, considering you didn’t tell anyone you got engaged until after you got married,” Luke said gruffly, “she probably won’t be as shocked as you think she will.”

“Agreed,” Lorelai said, nodding.

They both still threw in the occasional jab about Jess and Ella’s elopement, having missed it. Mostly, it was good-natured. Mostly. 

“You guys got copies of all the pictures!” Jess said defensively.

Ella could only laugh along with Rory.

“Yeah, and you can keep Liz’s thunder,” Lorelai assured her, back on topic. “I don’t think I’m interested in it.”

Ella laughed, but followed with her hand back in Jess’s grasp as he went over to the doorway. “We should be back in a couple hours.”

“Hopefully,” Jess added, sullen.

“Hey, look alive, Mister Sunshine,” Ella teased. 

He rolled his eyes playfully as he grabbed their coats and Ella’s bag. Lorelai, Luke, and Rory began bidding them goodbye (while Kirk lay on the couch, wailing and wallowing). Ella’s smile faltered a bit as she looked at Rory. They spoke semi-regularly, but it was sometimes very hard for Ella to bite her tongue. Rory was floundering in her career, burnt out from her intensity in school, and back to sleeping with unavailable men. Her affair with Logan, who was engaged, had been going on for a while, and Ella tried not to judge her. Instead, she just felt sad that her childhood friend was struggling. Rory had experienced meltdowns over bad grades even when they were in kindergarten. She had just begun working as the editor of the  _ Stars Hollow Gazette _ , though, which Ella thought might actually be perfect for Rory. She hoped things would brighten up soon. 

Jess held Ella’s coat up for her to put on chivalrously. 

It made Ella roll her eyes at how adorable he was. If she didn’t know it was only because of what a good dad he was already becoming, it would have been irritating. But she couldn’t help the way her heart glowed at the thought. He was a natural with kids. Always had been, even when he had no experience. And after the baby came, Jess and Ella were going to split time off, since Ella didn’t want to miss the summer semester at the University. Both of them would be part-time, and Ella was glad for both herself, and also, the baby. She was lucky Truncheon had finally picked up enough speed for significant taking of prolonged leave.

“It’s only a couple blocks, Jess. I think I’ll just carry it. I’ll be fine.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “That’s what you said last time. Then you got a fever!”

“God, you have no concept of weather! You can’t get sick from it! We’ve been over this!” she argued warily. “It was a coincidence! And it was just a cold, anyway!”

“Seems like a pretty big coincidence,” he said.   
  


“Yeah, seems like it,” she retorted flatly.

He sighed. “C’mon, Elle. Help me out. What’s the point in risking it?”

After a calculating look, she finally relented and turned, slipping her arms into the plaid peacoat’s sleeves. “Okay. But I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for you, James Dean.”

She faced him again, and shot him a look, as she pulled her blonde waves from beneath her collar. 

“Thank you so much,” Jess deadpanned.

“And, for Rhiannon,” she added, putting a hand to her stomach again with the extra layer on. 

Jess was donning his jean jacket, and he scoffed. “C’mon, Elle.”

“Rhiannon?” Lorelai asked. 

“I’m trying to convince him,” Ella said, tilting her head to her husband.

“I just think it’s a bit of a mouthful,” Jess said, shrugging.

“But we can call her ‘Annie’ for short, like I said,” Ella continued, unwilling to back down. The name had been on her mind forever. And they had already decided the baby’s middle name would be ‘Sophia.’

Jess sighed through his nose, then glanced at her earnestly. For once, Ella saw him actually consider it. Very seriously. Fleetwood Mac still wasn’t his favorite, but as he looked at her back in the Gilmore house, a reflection of who she had been over a decade earlier, he could hear her playing the song on Miss Patty’s piano the night of their first Thanksgiving together so vividly. It was like he was there again. And his eyes shone with love. It seemed he might like the name for their daughter after all. 

“Maybe,” he said finally.

She smiled widely, dimples showing and hazel eyes dancing. “Progress. I’ll take what I can get, cutie.”

“See you guys later?” Jess said, eyebrows raised at the other three. 

They uttered various confirmations and Jess turned to open the door as Lorelai came up behind them, blowing a kiss. Ella and Jess walked out the door, hand-in-hand, towards the dark green Volvo, which now seemed like it had been their car forever. As they descended the front porch steps, orange leaves crunching under their feet in the yard, they talked amongst themselves.

“I can’t believe I finally converted you to good taste, Mariano!” Ella teased. “Your daughter’s gonna be named after a Stevie Nicks song!”

Jess scoffed. “Yeah,  _ right _ . Like you’re anywhere close to indoctrinating me, Stevens.”

“So, you’re not denying the name thing, then?” she asked.

“No, I’m not denying the name thing,” Jess answered after a moment.

Ella pressed a kiss to his cheek as he rolled his eyes, but eventually turned genuine, turning her head with a gentle hand on her chin so he could kiss her on the lips just before they made it to the car. From the doorway, Rory shook her head and laughed at their familiar brand of bickering. 

“Guess some things never change,” Lorelai said, chuckling with her daughter.

Luke smiled fondly from behind the two women, while Ella and Jess prepared to drive away. He watched them go. “Yeah. I guess not.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! Here’s the epilogue way earlier than I thought! Seriously, I have loved writing this story. Thank you so much to everyone who went on this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)


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